


1 ^- 






) 








f 






.^1 








7JA 


n 


•fh 


i'i 




n 


O.’f 


f. hr 




*» i 


' i.;. r. ' 






r* 


\M 


N'V, 








\Vf 










.V 




'.Vtv 




,W4' 




a:'/*'. 


r .A 


'/.I 




/ 1 


'(V 


V’. 


,/ ’. 


> •■ 




I *J:' 


* m 


I..,. fsA 




St 


iy/> V 


V . ' 


41! iA 


.s* 


I ^ 


M>V(rv' 




i Mi 


Vi. 


'( . I 


.»« J’ A 


MS’ :m' 


w 


% 




i- 


m. 




iV 




V. -''JIWV* 




'4 


»’. t> 






'('A- 






' .1 


L*i;? 


rv5 


•-/ 


< ^i 


^V 


r' Ai 


•iV'v* . . 

'/;•■ vM r 


> .w, 


:■>/ 


»’ ♦. 


-• It./ 




r«'/« 


*'» Tv' 


.s4:4- 


ISl' 


'j > 


V ' 




<A% 


ft. 




N .. ' 




• I. 


i. * 


M • -v 


^ 1*. 






#V 


['m: 


• » 


it' 


■irri 


♦ y. r- . 


.. 


• t'* 


VjJJ T 


B 


.^• 




Si 




1 












mm 




:f, . I 


V'fi 




\ A 




4.'^. 




'» AM 


:i'i> 








t 1 if 






»i . /i- , ■»' . i/ • 

• 4 sy »' v‘>‘ I ,• 

• . 1 ’, M’ v S'v .;.' 


I. 




Vx-^m 

' V-. .r 


' •.>V>v 






UJ 


, 


A: 










^5; 


V;;T^ 

,fi^ .(•* . 

^'•/ S I P/ ' 

'.r 




^\i.' 


t V 




■' !';r‘ ;,; ■ :' ■ ■' 

' ■' ' ')r ' /'/fHh 

V/*- /^; •'/ ' < » ,• 

A .■•>•■* ” y ■ ‘ > K- ■*•• I ..•; X 

:i/!> :*; ■,„ '^ ' , 


yv 




iSf r •* 

’Sv- ■••.■,. 


XjA 


f( 4 \K 




lUk'/.X' 


V.Vi?-.' • 


A • » * A I I •■ • 










V# 














^ 1 V. (yj 




» »i 


^ 1,^., 
If /' 1 ■. . s M- ' 


'\J! 


M 


f. 




rT 


'\' k. i T»L’ W 


A/.'Ji I •■!■/ . 


:f. ' 


j t 


■. .M. •^V• ■■ 

• .i '.'; “'V ■ ' ; -fS;' 

■a; ty'V'ii'-ts: A!;.?' 


/ I 


.-.‘X 


,s * 


' W 


e’ V ’ / . • k 


I • 


* H 






a 




1,0 


.Vt^ 




/ > 


*.o 


vt‘\ -■ > 


iir 


'■.r 


ivi 




/* 






r#,' ■ ■•. 


Ml f 


^Z^0',r ■ 




r/':' ^ ■>:■ .i - 


7!.* 


r« 










v.Ay*'! 


■>// 


/ 




•■SM * ' 


M 




hV'v ft; 




'.f 




'<1? 


MUM. 


'ii' 


•\t, 


/V 


AV 


*. . ' ..I 


... '...//'V- ; ' iMti ... 




,R'.. 


*/ -.'i'/ r r 




I ' 




/ 




f 




M t 




ya 


VrV • 


UiV 










fjj 


kxr>v 


w 




H' 


yj 


.N',1 


I i 


9 .( 


ti. 






i" 


r-yi: 




.1 


Sit 


J ^’ Y) 


>-*l 


\ ‘ l' • * V 


5V. 


<K 


• .i-'r •"V .-j 


M' 




l>Jj 


•I \V 




• 4 




». .- /. r / . • . • I •*. ••K' i.'-.’i 

■ :.-t\.'X 


m 












v^.'. 


> ' 


V.. 


ivill l »> 




•I .'■ , 






I !♦ l 1 


.?i M 


> /Jk<, 


!rV> 




' <v:v' 


■/ 




'd 


I,';,''-!' 




■jv ’ ■'. . I "■ 


■.M.i 












* I 


» . • • 


.» .V 


AV.< 














v: k^- 


rij 




w^KmM 







MONICA 


AND OTHER STORIES 


BY PAUL BOURGET 


MONICA: And Other Stories. Translated from the 
French by William Marchant. 12mo. $1.50. 

THE DISCIPLE. 12mo. $1.50. 

DOMESTIC DRAMAS. Translated from the French 
by William Marchant. 12mo. $1.50. 

ANTIGONE : And Other Portraits of Women (“ Voy- 
ageuses ”)• Translated from the French by William 
Marchant. 12mo. $1.50. 

A TRAGIC IDYL. Translated from the French. 
12mo. $1.50. 

OUTRE-MER. Impressions of America. Trans- 
lated from the French. 12mo. $1.75. 


MONICA 


AND OTHER STORIES 


PAUL'i'BOURGET 


TRANSLATED BY 
WILLIAM MARCHANT 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1902 


T2 3 


6 


THF LieitARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

TYfo CopiEe Fi?oEivBt> 

APR. 1 190? 

Coev)»w»MT vwnry 

CLASS (V KX«C Na 

f 

COPY A. 


COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Published April, 1902 


NoriDOob 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


MONICA : 

I. An Artist’s Home 3 

II. The Gondola Arm-chair .... 21 

III. Suspicion 38 

IV. The Proof 62 

V. Francoise Franquetot 87 

VI. Explanations 125 

ATTITUDES 145 

GRATITUDE 209 

THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR: 

I. His Boyhood’s Friend 237 

II. Bob Milner 254 

III. A Chief 273 


V 





I 

MONICA 


TO 

MADAM EDITH WHAETON 


t 


bV.'k.y'’ 


• t 


% 


MONICA 


I 

AN artist’s home 

Every one in Paris who has a fancy for the beautiful 
furniture of the eighteenth century knows, by name at 
least, Hippolyte Eranquetot, the most skilful restorer of 
the fragile chefs-d’oeuvre of the master cabinet-makers of 
a century and a half ago. By his wonderful comprehen- 
sion of styles, by the elegance and precision of his work, 
by his ardour of enthusiasm also, Franquetot, though he 
has never abandoned his workingman’s blouse, is a great 
artist in a very small domain. But are there any small 
domains in art? When one has studied closely these 
creations of a Boulle, a Cressent, an Oeben, a Beneman, 
can he deny a kind of genius to these men — really poets 
in their way — who, adding by turns brass and tinted 
shell and tin to ivory and to ebony, uniting in iridescent 
marquetry rare woods of distant lands, — arbor vitae, 
violet wood, amaranth, kingwood, — carving and hollowing 
out rockwork, making contours of lace-work, giving to 
surfaces the curves as of a violin, setting on aslant the 

3 


4 


MONICA 


shields and cartouches, have stamped upon these common 
things — an arm-chair, a sofa, a bed, a table — the image 
of an entire life, gay and opulent, pleasure-loving and 
aristocratic ? 

In the great shipwreck of the Revolution this art 
perished, like the rest. Where now shall we find the 
two hundred and forty master cabinet-makers mentioned 
in the Almanack de Paris for the year 1789, who had 
^^done work memorable on one account or another,’’ 
one of their historians tells us ? The tradition of them 
is kept up only by isolated successors, such as Franquetot, 
in whom a natural gift and a prolonged study of the 
old examples have awakened a feeling for that cabinet- 
maker’s work which is as delicate as the making of 
jewelry. They are almost always self-taught, except for 
having attended, while very young, courses of professional 
design. The necessity of earning a living has driven 
them into workshops, where their talent is exploited by 
their employers until, sometimes a small inheritance, or 
sometimes a marriage dowry, or more rarely a spirit of 
enterprise, leads them to set up for themselves. As a 
rule, they only vegetate, and many finally go back into the 
workshop, where they perpetuate, in spite of everything, 
the fame of that which was, before the sad degeneracy 
of a democratic age, the exquisite French taste. Those 
of them in whom artistic talent is coupled with a knack 
at selling second-hand goods — a case which does occur 
— invent a somewhat discreditable means of prospering; 


MONICA 


5 


they buy, here and there, worm-eaten fragments in which 
they detect a possibility of restoration, and presently sell, 
as authentic, arm-chairs that have been as skilfully recon- 
structed as the canines of an American heiress after a few 
visits, at twenty-five dollars an hour, to some Boston or 
Philadelphia dentist. 

Precarious existences are these, lacking that vigorous 
security which the old corporations — of a time before the 
declaration of Human Eights — with their grades, their 
treasury, their laws, their oaths, their limited member- 
ship, procured for apprentices no less than for the 
brotherhood. These artist-workmen as a rule are con- 
scious of this inferiority of the present to the past, and 
feel themselves victims — quite as much, if not more, 
than the nobles — of the revolutionary Utopia. And 
so, it is among them that the sophists of Socialism find 
their most determined foes. Their technical training, giv- 
ing them the feeling of the well-made thing, saves these 
honest handlers of tools from the mental inexactitude 
which is so propitious to vain, empty phrases. Some, 
even, — and our good Franquetot is of the number, — from 
their own direct and simple experience arrive at the 
soundest political philosophy. Push open, some day, 
the door of the atelier which this worthy man occupies 
in the interior courtyard of an old building in the rue 
Oudinot, the windows looking out into an immense 
garden, which is still intact, and mention to him, in 
the course of conversation, the name of the artist whom 


6 


MONICA 


he admires most in all the world, the illustrious and un- 
fortunate Henri Riesener, and you will be having very 
bad luck if the original personage before you does not 
burst out into one of those tirades in which he curses 
the Revolution with as much sharpness and lucidity as if, 
instead of being the son of a little upholsterer of Mont- 
parnasse, and himself a repairer of arm-chairs, in an 
out-of-the-way corner of the faubourg Saint-Germain, 
he were comte Joseph de Maistre, or the vicomte de 
Ronald, Monsieur Le Play, or Monsieur Taine. 

“And they want me to be a Republican!’’ he ex- 
claims. (By the way, no one has ever known who 
are these mysterious they hostile to the reactionary 
convictions of the honest cabinet-maker, who has never 
registered as a voter and scarcely ever talks with any 
but those of the same opinion with himself!) “I say 
to them, ‘Have you ever been at Pontainebleau and 
seen La Commode f ’ ” (To him there is but one, that 
of Riesener, an engraving of which you will find in all 
the special works on this subject.) “Have you ever 
been at the Louvre and seen Le Bureau?^* (This 
means, as you will have divined, the no less famous 
Bureau du Roi.^^) “You have never seen them? 
Well, go and see them ! The man who made those ex- 
quisite things was prosperous. The king, the queen, 
all the court, knew his worth; they employed him, 
they respected him. — Then comes your Republic, and 
he can work no longer. Did you know this, he was 


MONICA 


7 


obliged to sell these masterpieces of his at auction, 
and he could not even get money enough for them to 
keep him in food in his old age? — My opinion, mon- 
sieur, is very simple: I am for the government under 
which Riesener could work! — Ah! that secretary in 
the Louvre, what a delight to look at it! What that 
man knew, and what we no longer know, is that each 
kind of wood has a soul, that it is a person, — that it 
gives a note in a concert, you might say. Amaranth, 
maple, box, violet wood, kingwood, male mahogany — 
he used them all, blended them together, and it is so 
lithe, it could run; so gay, it laughs; and it is so 
noble! How can they make us believe” (again his 
mysterious opponents!) “that men were not happy in 
a time when things like this were composed, things 
that delight your heart when you look at them — and 
they were made for use, too ! Notice this, it is another 
of their lies to assert that these are all merely objects 
of luxury, and not serviceable ! Not serviceable? With 
this simple and positive construction, these outlines so 
firmly based ? What nonsense ! It is the trash of 
to-day that cannot stand anything. And so much the 
better, too, so much the better! How could it be 
otherwise, when workmen are reading the papers and 
discussing taxes and elections and property, instead 
of thinking about their business? My men there, when 
I began with them, had an inclination that way. I 
used to say to them: < Do as I do — when you have a 


8 


MONICA 


minute, instead of tiring yourself over that newspaper, 
which isn't worth the sou it costs, design a moulding, 
an arm of a sofa, the back of a chair! If you have a 
spare afternoon, go to the Louvre, or the Garde-Meuble, 
or Versailles. Don't talk politics ; talk woods.' And 
I have trained pupils myself, — first those men, and 
then my nephew, Tavernier. Do not forget the name, 
monsieur ; he will be famous some day. When he was 
eighteen I had hopes that he would be a Jacob. I 
have a marquise there that he made from a design by 
Gr^mont. What a man that was, the prince de Conde's 
fournisseur! But see, Tavernier deserted wood for 
marble. He went through the Beaux- Arts, and now he 
makes statues." (Then a sigh, that of a master whose 
favourite pupil has disappointed him, and a grimace of 
disdain.) “I didn't blame him for it. One should 
never blame an artist. One can never know whither le 
bon Dieu will lead him. But I said to him: ‘You'll 
return to wood. Wood is life; stone is death.' And 
he does come, now and then, to help me out when I 
have some very fine piece to save. But they are get- 
ting scarce in France. We are letting them all go to 
America. And how will those Yankees be able to 
take care of them and keep them in repair! Alas! 
My poor, poor country ! " 

It is of France that this successor of the famous 
Mnistes of an earlier day speaks so discouragingly. 
— But time presses. He is overcrowded with orders. 


MONICA 


9 


In a fit of indignation against the bunglers of to-day, 
he has opened to you the very depths of his heart; and 
already he is forgetting you. He has settled his big round 
spectacles more firmly upon his nose. Although he is 
no more than just fifty-five years of age, his eyes are a 
little fatigued by over-fine work, as his hair and beard 
have whitened by reason of troubles. He has sought 
out, among the numerous tools that crowd his bench, 
the curved or concave gouge that his present work re- 
quires ; he has tightened the double screw holding 
together the uprights of the cork- and leather-covered 
vise between which is held the fragment whereon he is 
now at work. He has forgotten you — you and France 
and America, and the “ they ” who have calumniated the 
strength of E-iesener^s furniture. He is now gone com- 
pletely into his tool, which his agile fingers use with 
a fineness of touch worthy of the author of La Com- 
mode — with two capitals ! His four journeymen, — 
very nearly as old as he is, — whom he calls, in a 
fatherly way, his pupils, and who are so, are also at 
work. The planes and the scrapers are busy, too, and 
no one is talking politics. Everywhere, to the right 
and the left, heaped up in corners, hanging from the 
ceiling, shapes of ancient pieces of furniture appear to 
view, with all the elegances of their curved outlines, 
the more easily recognizable because there is scarcely 
anything to them but the mere skeletons of sofas and 
chairs, destitute of all padding. 


10 


MONICA 


If the door in the corner over yonder should chance 
to be partly open, you will see another smaller atelier 
adjacent to the principal one, devoted to the repairing 
of tapestries. Three women are at work there, mend- 
ing fragments of Beauvais or Gobelin. The needles 
move over the woof — here, completing the half -obi it- 
erated foliage of a tree; there, adding a finger to a muti- 
lated hand ; elsewhere, a feather to a bird’s dilapidated 
wing. Once, not very long ago, before the events took 
place which are the subject of this story, that door was 
always wide open. At that time Franquetot would not 
have failed to introduce you into this more remote por- 
tion of his kingdom, that he might bring to your notice 
some stitch of haute or hasse lissCf for, at that time, two 
out of the three workwomen employed upon this delicate 
reconstruction were very dear to his heart. One was 
his daughter Marguerite — so named because of Mar- 
guerite Van der Cruze, the widow of the great Oeben, 
who, for her second husband, married the immortal 
Kiesener. And if Monica, the other, was not his 
daughter by blood, perhaps he loved her still more 
tenderly. She was his pupil, in the same degree as 
his nephew Tavernier, an enthusiast — like himself and 
trained by him — for the masterpieces of the Louvre 
and the Garde-Meuble. Now she has left him, like 
Tavernier, and in circumstances which have had some 
share, doubtless, in the ^premature whitening of the 
hair of her adoptive father. For Monica was more to 


MONICA 


11 


him than a pupil. Her presence there was, in itself, a 
living proof that with Franquetot, as with every true 
worshipper of art, the heart is as noble, as generous, 
as the head. Although that story is but indirectly 
connected with the little drama which I propose to 
relate, I must tell it here briefly, were it only to place 
in a clearer light the old man’s picturesque and valiant 
physiognomy. 

Some twenty-one years ago, then, one evening early 
in May, Franquetot — at that time young, and without 
a thread of silver in his bronze locks — was returning 
home at about eleven o’clock. Upon the wall of a 
garden which in those days formed the corner of the rue 
Oudinot and the rue de Monsieur — but has since given 
place, as all the gardens of old Paris are doing, one 
by one, to an enormous apartment-house — he per- 
ceived a large basket, which could not have been de- 
posited there more than a few moments before, since 
the patrolmen on their rounds, who must have passed 
along that sidewalk, were still in view at the farther 
end of the street and had evidently seen nothing un- 
usual. The wall was low and topped by an iron railing. 
The person, man or woman, who had watched till the 
police had passed and set the basket on the wall, could but 
just have had the time to secure it to the railing by 
a strong cord hastily tied. Franquetot cut this cord 
and took down the basket to see what was in it. By 
the gaslight he perceived that the basket itself was 


12 


MONICA 


lined with straw, upon which lay a new-born baby, 
wrapped in a blanket. A feeding-bottle filled with 
milk lay beside the little creature, and seemed to in- 
vite the passer-by who might find the child, to give it 
needful care. 

Franquetot stood for a moment stupefied at the unex- 
pectedness of the discovery and looked alternately at 
the baby's sleeping face and at the patrolmen, who 
just then were motionless, talking with each other at 
the end of the street. What should he do? Should 
he call them and at once rid himself of responsibility 
by placing the child in their care, or take it home 
and wait till daylight before making investigations? 
The latter course seemed preferable. The wood-carver 
saw distinctly in his mind the baby carried to the sta- 
tion, awakened, handled with brutal indifference. The 
thought of it made him shut down the lid very cau- 
tiously, not to waken the innocent little sleeper, take 
the basket up as carefully as a nurse would do, and go 
his way homeward with a very slow step, as if he were 
carrying the most precious of burdens. 

It was thus that Monica — the baby was a girl — had 
made her entrance, on the 4th of May (the saint's day 
by whose name she was afterwards baptized), into the 
apartment at the end of the courtyard in the old house 
of the rue Oudinot. At that period a simple notice 
was upon the door: — 

Menuiserie, ih&nisterie 
Hippolyte Franquetot^ sculpteur. 


MONICA 


13 


The next morning, on waking up, the sculpteur afore- 
said — whom this adventure had kept awake during 
a large part of the night — rose very early and went 
to look at the little girl by daylight where she lay, as 
he had left her, in her basket. Seeing her so pretty, 
in the yellow straw which went so well with the tender 
pink of her cheeks, he had said to Franqoise, his wife : 

Suppose we should keep her ? She would be a play- 
mate for Marguerite.” They had already this one child, 
eighteen months old. Fran^oise had rejoined, “Why 
not? ” And they had adopted the foundling, doing this 
in the simplest and quietest way, as worthy people in 
their class of life so often do their good deeds, seem- 
ingly unconscious of what they are doing. 

The adoption of Monica had been the origin of the 
tapestry atelier. Having two young girls of nearly 
the same age in his house, the cabinet-maker had formed 
the idea of giving them an occupation which should be 
the complement of his own. Two lines more upon the 
sign tell the story — to his greater sadness now, when 
he looks at them — of this double fatherhood which, 
alas! was to end so unfortunately: — 

Reparations de tapisseries 
GobelinSj Beauvais, Auhussons, Points et Smyme. 

But Monica is no longer there to direct the work of 
the others, and pick up torn stitches with her fairy’s 
needle j and for this reason Frauquetot no longer likes 


14 


MONICA 


very well to have the door stand open. And this is the 
reason, too, for the sudden fits of silence which seize 
him in his most expansive moments. He will be talk- 
ing to you with his picturesque eloquence of days long 
past, then will stop short, sit down again at his bench 
with an almost rough movement, and plunge savagely 
into his work. These sudden attacks of ill-humour are 
specially likely to happen if you, being an old cus- 
tomer, should ask innocently whether he has not some 
fine bit of tapestry to show you. ^‘Ho, I have none,’’ 
he will reply, with an impatience that you cannot ac- 
count for, and very likely may yourself have increased 

— if you do not know the story of Monica’s departure 

— by glancing toward the other room with a remem- 
brance of the charming, girlish face that you used to 
see in all its radiant youth there among those ancient 
surroundings. Only a year ago the beautiful girl used 
to sit there, her fair hair knotted simply on the top of 
her somewhat long head. When she leaned too busily 
over her work, a tress of this beautiful hair would 
escape and fall over her eyes, and she would fasten it 
up again, with a motion that revealed the slender grace 
of her youthful figure. She had blue eyes of a soft, 
dark shade, which endless hours spent at her frame 
had not dulled, and features daintily pretty, which had 
a suggestive resemblance — due, perhaps, to the secret 
magnetism which emanates from things — to faces of 
that eighteenth century, so beloved by her benefactor. 


MONICA 


15 


Had not her life, thanks to him, been always passed 
among relics of that age ? Her profile had the brilliant 
and tender, the changeful and gay refinement of heads 
drawn by the famous painter of fMes galantes. At the 
same time, a modesty, very pathetic when one knew 
the sad mystery of her origin, seemed to check all 
merry mischief in the adopted girl, and, as it were, 
veil her with humility. Very white teeth, small ears, 
a slender waist, the feet and hands of a duchess, made 
her, in her cheap little frocks, cut and sewn by her- 
self, a living Watteau. These signs of race authorized 
conjectures of all sorts as to the birth of this adorable 
creature. Was she the child of a drama of passion, 
having its secret end in this horrible abandonment, 
after having had for its actors the noble dwellers in 
some historic house of this aristocratic quarter ? Cer- 
tain it is that the girl, thus brought up by a humble 
cabinet-maker of the faubourg, had that instinctive, 
innate elegance which gives an air of distinction to the 
poorest attire, and in 1793 could make the high-bred 
woman remain the aristocrat still, even in the denuda- 
tion and promiscuity of prisons. When she was at 
work in the atelier, seated beside Marguerite Fran- 
quetot, who had been her companion at every hour, at 
every minute of the day, in childhood and in girlhood, 
it sufiiced merely to compare them one with the other, 
to recognize in Monica the indestructible prestige of 
race. They had grown up together, played, worked, 


16 


MONICA 


lived together; but while the foundling had, from her 
earliest years, the figure and look of a demoiselle, the 
other was plainly a working-girl, the child of working- 
people, having, in her entire personality, that kind of 
precocious and unrefining fatigue which shows heredity 
from too laborious parents. 

To render perfectly intelligible the adventure to which 
these retrospective details serve as introduction, we 
must add that Marguerite, though Franquetot’s own 
child, has never at all resembled her father. From 
her mother she inherits her big bones, her black 
hair, thick and coarse, and that soul, also, all 
animal and instinctive, capable alike of better and 
of worse, which by turns gives to her yellowish-brown 
eyes a courageous fire and the sly savagery of a wild 
beast. She still is there in the workshop, and you will 
see her bent over her frame, — her profile always 
sharper and more like an animal as time goes on, a 
profile in which a caricaturist would detect a resem- 
blance to the weasel. How and why did it chance that 
Franquetot, who, though a man of the people, has not 
a trace of vulgarity, should have married the clownish 
creature who could bear him a daughter like this? Here, 
again, he showed the type of the unpractical man of 
genius who marries at random — anybody — to have 
some one who will spare him the intolerable vexation 
of material cares. La maman, as he now calls his 
wife, was a servant in a creamery when he first met her. 


MONICA 


17 


Her name was Fran^oise Cheminat, and on her coarse 
cheek there was a country freshness brought from the 
village of Puy-de-Dome, whence she had come to Paris, 
impelled by that desire to emigrate which is one of the 
most inexplicable and most common traits of the Au- 
vergnat. Franquetot had taken her for a servant, and 
a servant she had remained. Not a soup had she ever 
served to her man, in the thirty years of their married 
life, that she had not made with her own hands. 
Although, with his increasing reputation, the wood- 
carver now earns quite as much as the well-to-do fami- 
lies in the other apartments of the house have by way of 
income, the energetic Auvergnat woman has not yet, even 
since Monica’s departure, been willing to entertain the 
idea of keeping a maid. 

Let me alone ! ” she says to her neighbours, when 
they urge her at least to have a cook, to spare her own 
fatigue. “ Let me alone ! Pardi, I shall engage one at 
the next Saint Never ’s day.” 

Or, sometimes this ; “ I will ask Darchis to send me 
one, the next time I see him.” And to the aston- 
ished gossips, ‘^You don’t know Darchis?” And she 
quotes the proverb of her province: — 

Travailler chez Darchis, 

Ni pay4s, ni nourris — ” 

Who was this Darchis, this legendary personage 
whom all the peasants in central France well know, 


18 


MONICA 


and whom they mention as the model of the rogne-denier 
(the ‘‘penny-clipper that they would all like to be ? 
This word, which savours of the ancien regime^ and, 
like it, is not out of place among the curious old arm- 
chairs of the workshop, is one of those that Mother 
Franquetot retains from Fontfrede, her far-away vil- 
lage. — Yes, who was Darchis? — The good woman is 
no better informed on this point than yourself. She 
laughs, however, and winks, at the name of this imagi- 
nary miser as at that of a friend, and pares her pota- 
toes for the evening meal more briskly than before, 
unless, perhaps, she may be employed in gently stewing 
a ragout after her own fashion; for, though she knows 
no more about furniture than about orthography, she 
has by instinct all the talents of a country cordon bleu. 
No person can equal her in the dainties of her native 
land, so expressively called “the Golden Soup,” “the 
Thousand Millions,” “the Farinade.” It is not to her 
talent for cooking that she owes her marriage with 
Franquetot, for the good, easy man has never really 
known what he ate. But what of real life does he 
know, this waking dreamer, worthy to have made that 
very arm-chair in which the simple-minded hidalgo 
beloved of Cervantes, used to sit, hypnotizing himself 
over romances of chivalry ? Before last spring had he 
ever suspected that his own home was the theatre 
of an emotional tragedy which would shortly burst out 
in painful episodes? Had he ever seen the savagely 


MONICA 


19 


hostile looks which his daughter Marguerite would fix 
upon Monica, her sister by adoption? Had it ever 
occurred to him that the foundling, treated by him like 
that daughter — better than that daughter, even — must 
have excited in the latter’s mind an envy all the more 
passionate because there existed between them the an- 
tagonism of two races — the plebeian and the noble, and 
the hostility of two origins — that of the legitimate 
girl, the child of duty ; that of the illegitimate, the 
child of love? Had he never noticed that his good Fran- 
Qoise — she, too — had begun to have sharp words for 
the stranger, whom she had welcomed with a cordiality 
so sincere when, long ago, he had brought the child 
home, a baby? Had he observed that special fits of 
ill-temper on his wife’s part had corresponded to visits 
from Michel Tavernier? During these visits had he 
noticed the manner of this young fellow toward the 
two girls, and seen — what all his workmen had not 
failed to remark upon — the inclination of the young 
sculptor for Monica, her careful reserve toward him, 
and the jealousy of Marguerite? It is the honour and 
the misfortune of the devotee of art to pass through 
life without seeing anything of it except that portion of 
it which is in harmony with his dream. It was for 
naught that Franquetot lived in a poor courtyard of a 
poor street, and pursued a poor trade at a poor epoch — 
in thought he went and came among the splendours of 
a stately age. Reality, to him, was not our day of 


20 


MONICA 


tyrannical syndicates, and mean work ill paid; it was 
the time when Marie Antoinette visited E-iesener in 
the Arsenal. It was a time yet more remote, when a 
Boulle, a Mace, a Stabre, those magicians in mar- 
quetry, were lodged in the Louvre, and described as 
Sgavants MenuisierSf just as a Descartes and a Pascal 
were described as Sgavants GeomUres. It was the 
famous period when Louis XIV. expended three mill- 
ion livres in works of cabinet-making for his palaces. 
Up to the time when this story begins, namely, the end 
of April, 1900, the calendar, to this honest and enthu- 
siastic Franquetot, had presented only professional an- 
niversaries, which he observed with rejoicing or with 
lamentations, as the case required : the last day of this 
month of April, for instance, was the anniversary of 
that fire, in 1720, which broke out about three in the 
morning, on the second floor of Boulle ’s house, and 
destroyed the workshops and the rooms where his woods 
were stored. — What an elegy upon these lost treasures ! 
— The 6th of January was the saddest date of all, when 
Eiesener died, poor and neglected, in 1806. — Again, 
what another elegy ! — And so on with all the dates ! 


II 


THE GONDOLA ARM-CHAIR 

That memorable April day to which I have just re- 
ferred had begun with an event which will be spoken 
of for years in the workshops of the faubourg Saint- 
Germain. One of the workmen, Jolibois, called the 
Admiral, — because of his taste for boating, — had been 
employed in stripping one of those gondola arm-chairs 
which were so very much the fashion at the close of 
the reign of Louis Quinze. The chair belonged to the 
estate of an old comtesse de Lingendes, who had died 
at the age of seventy-nine, leaving to her heirs one of 
those whimsical collections of furniture in which the 
choicest bibelots were side by side with the most gro- 
tesque objects, and the contrasting tastes of three or four 
generations were promiscuously represented. Young M. 
de Lingendes, the great-grandson of the dowager, had 
selected from among this mass a few pieces which could 
take their place in his wife^s petit salon. The gondola 
arm-chair was among the number, with some other seats 
that matched it. It was a series of very fine pieces, but 
the arm-chair especially had that admirable curving 
amplitude of the back, that elegance in the fluting of 

21 


22 


MONICA 


the legs and in the motifs of the ribbon, and that dain- 
tiness in the gilding, which are equivalent to a stamp, 
and reveals at once to the connoisseur a master’s hand. 
Nor did it take Franquetot very long to discover in a 
corner of this beautiful piece of furniture a mark which 
he promptly identified as that of a certain Leleu, — an 
ebeniste whose works are now rare, — who, about 1772, 
had a shop in the rue Eoyale. The material with 
which this arm-chair and the other pieces were covered 
agreed well with this date. It was that tri-coloured 
damask, striped in red, blue, and white, which was 
made the fashion, about that time, by two of the grandes 
dames who were then all-powerful in Paris — the mar- 
quise de la Eoche-Aymon and the comtesse de Crillon. 
This silk must have been exquisite in its light, gay 
freshness. At present, and especially in the arm-chair, 
which had traces of hard use, it was but a worn-out 
and mended rag. The lacquer of the back was almost 
entirely gone ; the beads and the indented edge of the 
ribbon were rubbed off ; a leg had been broken and then 
rudely glued on by one of those workmen whom the 
conscientious Franquetot spoke of, indignantly, and 
after the manner of the faubourg, as badouillards. 

“ The patient is very ill, ” he had declared, after being 
called in consultation by the heir of the deceased owner, 
and after examining the arm-chair with the eye of a sur- 
geon at the bedside of a wounded man. Then he had 
added, as an Ollier might have done at the bedside of 


MONICA 


23 


a Trousseau, had he found himself there : “ But this is 
a Leleu, and we must save it. I owe it to Mm ! 

The treatment had been begun, in the usual way in 
such cases, by reducing the chair to a skeleton ; and the 
workman employed in this preliminary task had sud- 
denly discovered, in the hair of the cushion which he 
was picking apart, an object which had caused him to 
exclaim and all his companions to turn and look at him. 
This object was a linen envelope, very large and very 
flat, which the Admiral at once handed to the master 
of the shop. It was unsealed and contained thirty- 
seven papers of different sizes and colours, consisting 
chiefly of lottery bonds of the Credit Foncier and of 
the city of Paris, and all payable to the bearer. 

Monsieur de Lingendes will be pleased when I tell 
him this ! ” Franquetot had said, as he turned over the 
papers. “What a number of five hundred and four 
hundred francs ! ” he added, looking at the figures. (Is 
it needful to say that this worshipper of Kiesener had 
but the vaguest ideas as to the purchase or sale of 
stocks? Were they “higher’’ or “lower,” it was all 
the same to him. Had he money to invest, he simply 
took it to a savings bank, which transformed it for 
him, in an almost mechanical way, into government 
securities.) And he continued, adding up the sums in- 
scribed on the papers : “ Let us see : two thousand, two 
thousand five hundred, four thousand, five thousand. 
There are eighteen thousand two hundred francs, 


24 


MONICA 


without counting the coupons that have not been cut 
off ! On this bond, for ten years ; on this, for two ; on 
that, for nine ! Probably the old comtesse had bought 
these, one by one, at a broker’s. And then she hid 
them in this arm-chair! Why should she have done 
it? Well! that is her affair, not mine. What we 
have to do now is to pick the others to pieces as soon 
as possible! But carefully, boys! How many other 
pieces are there in the set? Four chairs, a berg^re, 
and a sofa. Go to work! What a windfall for the 
owner! And he deserves it. He knew the worth of 
these Leleux!” 

Whereupon every man in the shop was set at work 
taking off the damask covers of the six pieces that 
completed the set, of which the gondola arm-chair was 
the most important. Although surprises of this kind 
are not rare in the trade to which Franquetot belongs 
— so many are the jealous old people who consider 
mattresses and cushions as good hiding-places — this 
search for treasure always sets a whole shop eagerly 
at work. And so all of them, the girls as well as the 
men, — for Marguerite and Monica had been called in, — 
acquitted themselves of their task with a fidelity that 
left not a thread of the material and not a recess in the 
wood unexplored in all that had been the dowager’s 
property. But this second examination brought no 
discovery. 

“There may be other bonds in the furniture left in 


MONICA 


25 


the house/^ Franquetot said. ^‘Here, there is nothing 
more.” He looked at the clock. ‘‘It is half-past tenj 
we have wasted an hour. We must make that up. 
This afternoon I will go and tell M. de Lingeodes about 
this. YouTl get a good reward, Admiral. You 
must give us champagne! Now we must tie up the 
package.” 

“Champagne, I think not!” rejoined Jolibois. 
“But you must admit it is vexatious always to be 
finding things, and always in other people^s furniture! 
You remember, patron, I found a will in this way, six 
years ago, and ten years ago, two thousand-franc notes.’’ 

“You could not eat more than one dinner a day, 
could you, if you had all that money?” one of the 
men asked jokingly; and this cheerful philosophy 
showed what a spirit of gay acceptance of things as 
they are the noble nature of the wood-carver diffused 
around him. His men and himself were one family. 
He gave a fresh proof of this in placing the precious 
envelope in the drawer of a secretary where he kept his 
own papers, and from which he did not remove the 
key. All the virtues with simple people have an easy- 
going air which gives them a certain strong, true 
poetry. They seem more frank, and deeper also, in 
being less results of attainment. But especially it is 
integrity which, in humble environments like this of 
which we speak, assumes that character of an almost 
august simplicity, so much innate and indestructible 


26 


MONICA 


uprightness does it take for granted. The worthy 
Jolibois, who earned exactly his nine francs day by 
day, never for an instant had the idea of concealing, 
from his master and his fellow-workmen, his discovery. 
And neither had they thought of being surprised at 
their comrade’s honesty. Franquetot had not the slight- 
est idea that this package of bonds could be in any 
danger in this drawer, which was open to all j and work 
began anew in the atelier, varied now by anecdotes 
about secret drawers in furniture which the master 
cabinet-maker loved to relate. Uneducated though he 
was, Franquetot had so ransacked books on the eigh- 
teenth century, in his eager curiosity to know every- 
thing about the makers of these beautiful objects which 
he admired, that he had become as erudite on this sub- 
ject as a curator of the Louvre or the Carnavalet. 

‘^No one made so many of them,” he said, ^^as Eoent- 
gen, whom the English call David de Luneville. But 
why, I ask you, unless for the pleasure of differing from 
us? For he was a native of Neuwied near Coblentz. 
His marquetry is not bad, but it is cold! He was very 
fond of Chinese themes. I had a honheur-du-jour of 
his which was really curious. At the right there was 
a mandarin, who was taking a cup of tea. If you turned 
the cup, like this,” and he indicated the motion, “it 
fell over. And there was a button which, in turn, 
opened the panel. The joint was so well made that 
Madame de Candale, to whom the little table belonged. 


MONICA 


27 


had never even suspected the drawer. We discovered 
it here. But the Admiral not being present with his 
luck, there was nothing in it of course ! But I say this 
to you: these pieces of furniture with secret drawers 
do not belong to cabinet-making, they belong to clock- 
making. Roentgen had worked much with Kintzing, 
and he acquired this taste from him. He ruined him- 
self with these fooleries. His Louis Seize is Louis 
Seize, I don’t deny; but it is poor; it is bare, meagre, 
narrow. Nobody can do two things well at once. Are 
you a cabinet-maker, yes or no? Or are you a locksmith? 
You must choose.” 

The ardent enthusiast was just presenting this alterna- 
tive to the pseudo David de Luneville, as if the latter 
had been present, in flesh and bone, standing there 
among the chips for the purpose of submitting to him 
a design for an armoire d surprises^ when the clocks of 
the neighbouring convents began to tell off the twelve 
strokes of noon above this peaceful quarter where their 
sound has the long-drawn resonance of country bell- 
ringing. 

This was the moment when the workmen daily quitted 
the shop to repair, each to his own home, for the mid- 
day meal. Their way of living was as patriarchal as 
their master’s, all four of them being married; one, the 
Admiral, to a woman who sold newspapers and writing- 
paper for the use of schools, in the rue Rousselet, very 
near the Brothers’ School; the second, to a laundress. 


28 


MONICA 


at the extremity of the rue Vanneau; the third, to the 
concierge of a small building in the rue Pierre-Leroux ; 
the fourth, to an embroidress, who had a room in the 
rue de Babylone. 

The extraordinary occurrence that they had to relate 
made them more prompt than usual in leaving the ate- 
lier. It is needless to add that, the same evening, in 
all the rooms and small apartments of the quarter, 
nothing was talked of but this treasure of more than a 
hundred thousand francs in gold, discovered at Mon- 
sieur Franquetot’s (public respect gave him the dis- 
tinction of the “ Monsieur ”) in the seat of an arm-chair. 
Such was the absolute confidence of Franquetot, not 
merely in his own workmen, but in all the inmates of 
the house, that he never thought either of taking out 
the key of the drawer where he had placed the securi- 
ties, or of bolting the door of the workshop while he 
should be himself at breakfast in the apartment that 
he occupied upstairs. At the stroke of two the work- 
men returned, as usual; and when, after having given 
out their work for the afternoon, the master said, “I 
have to go to see a duchesse sofa in the rue de Kichelieu, 
and then I will go to M. de Lingendes and return these 
bonds, he took out the package without any thought 
of verifying its contents. 

“Perhaps I have your fortune here, Admiral,” he 
said, striking the package with the palm of his hand. 
“ Why not? Suppose the comte gives you, as a reward. 


MONICA 


29 


one of these lottery bonds. It may draw a prize; that 
prize may be a hundred, may be two hundred thousand 
francs! Such a thing has been heard of.’^ 

Everybody knows how childish is the imagination of 
the masses, how inclined to chimeras, idyllic or formid- 
able, as the case may be. The visitor who had heard 
the finder of treasures and his comrades interchange 
ideas, as soon as the patron had gone out, would have 
again admired the facility with which the disinherited 
of Destiny seize the least pretext to build castles in the 
air. Be it said in passing, it is the disgrace of evil- 
doers in Parliament and in public meetings that they 
exploit, to the profit of their political fortune, this 
simple-minded proclivity of the ignorant to expect a 
millennium. At the mere hypothesis of an enormous 
prize gained by one of them, the imagination of all 
was awakened, and they began to dream aloud, each 
one giving in brief the story of the life he should like 
to live if the miraculous manna of a sum like this 
should fall upon him out of heaven. The Admiral 
took a house at Asnieres, on the bank of the Seine, and 
passed his life there, managing a boat, built after his 
own design. Avron, the husband of the laundress, 
bought a vineyard in Ni^vre, his own village. The 
third, Chassaing, the husband of the concierge, simply 
went to live in the environs of Paris, and cultivated a 
little garden. The fourth, Espitalier, the husband of 
the embroidress, removed to Poitou, near the residence 


30 


MONICA 


of his wife’s family, and occupied himself in rearing 
horses. 

In these innocent plans appeared the deep, vague love, 
common to the lower class of townspeople, whether 
tradesmen or artisans, for a country Utopia, which 
presents itself to their minds as one prolonged holiday, 
and in imagination they breathe its vivifying odours 
amid the close atmosphere in which their humble con- 
dition imprisons them. And it was enough to make 
the faces of these four poor fellows quite radiant, and 
to make their tools move gayly, until the unexpected 
return of Franquetot, and the still more unexpected 
aspect of his countenance as he entered, interrupted 
them. He had gone out with joy in his eyes and on 
his face — that of a good fellow who carries to another 
man a welcome surprise. He had said that he was 
going across the river, — quite a distance then, — and 
he was here again in twenty minutes, his high forehead 
all wrinkled with vexation above his great bushy eye- 
brows, a sombre look in his blue eyes, usually so clear, 
a droop at the corners of his mouth, a few minutes ago 
so expressive of simple good humour. 

This disconcerting expression on this broad, large- 
featured face, where each could read, usually, as in an 
open book, struck his men still more forcibly when 
Franquetot, as soon as he had shut the door, and with- 
out his customary jovial “ Bon jour ! ” had gone straight 
to the secretary where, in the morning, he had placed 


MONICA 


31 


the package. He had opened the drawer and rummaged, 
hastily and eagerly, among the papers heaped up in it. 
Not finding what he sought, he seemed to hesitate a 
moment, as if he were a prey to unendurable distress. 
In the presence of this strange disturbance the work- 
men were all silent. Amazement had paralyzed their 
wonted familiarity. This amazement still further in- 
creased when they saw Franquetot look wildly at them, 
one after the other, and heard him talking to himself : 
“No. It is not possible. I have no right to think of 
such a thing ! ” 

He looked at them again; and passed his hand over 
his forehead several times, as if to brush away an idea, 
which gradually got the better of him, however, for, 
with a determined gesture, his face suddenly contracted 
in a resolute and almost harsh tension of all its features, 
he called them by name, one after another, with a kind 
of solemnity in his tone : “Jolibois! Avron! Chassaing! 
Espitalier ! ’’ 

“Here we are, patron , replied Jolibois, speaking for 
his comrades. He was the dean of the atelier, and he 
expressed the common feeling of all as he added: 
“What is it. Monsieur Franquetot? If anybody is 
making you trouble, we will see to it ! ” 

The four men had gathered around the old cabinet- 
maker. Their rude faces manifested such an affection 
for the excellent man, and such an absolute simplicity 
of heart in their devotion to him, that this scene, com- 


32 


MONICA 


monplace enough, of the investigation of a domestic 
theft amid the accessories belonging to a very humble 
trade, between these bloused journeymen and this mas- 
ter of the shop, in his awkward jacket no cleaner than 
their blouses, suddenly assumed a positive grandeur. 
The loyalty of man to man is never finer and more 
touching than from the workman to the master, the 
employee to the employer. It proves so much pro- 
found humanity in the master, who has been capable 
of respecting labour which is done for a price and util- 
izing without exploiting it, so much gratitude in the 
wage-earners, who have been capable of recognizing 
this fair treatment and not envying their superior for 
being more fortunate or more skilful than themselves. 
Eranquetot was touched by the spontaneous impulse 
with which these honest fellows, seeing him so upset, 
but ignorant of the cause of his distress, responded to 
his appeal ; and he said to them, their curiosity growing 
all the stronger from these first words of his, which 
were completely unintelligible to them ; — 

‘^No! It was not you, mes enfants; I know that; I 
see it. I was sure of it. It is not you.” Then, with 
despair: “But who is it? Who is it?” Then going to 
the secretary again, and again opening the drawer, he 
went on: “You saw me this morning, when the Admi- 
ral found the package, put it in this drawer? You saw 
me count the bonds? You remember perfectly well that 
there were thirty-seven — exactly thirty-seven, neither 


MONICA 


33 


more nor less? I have not been dreaming, have I? No 
one came in before noon. At noon you went to break- 
fast, all of you ; and no one of you came back until two 
o’clock?” 

‘‘None of us,” replied Jolibois, continuing to speak 
for the others, who nodded assent to what he said. 

“I have asked the concierge,” Franquetot continued, 
“and he says that he did not see any stranger come in. 
Well, mes enfants, when I took the package to M. de 
Lingeudes, and told him about your finding it, Jolibois, 
he and I counted the bonds together — and there were 
only thirty-two, instead of thirty-seven ! ” 

“Only thirty-two?” the workmen exclaimed, with 
an amazement and consternation which Espitalier, the 
youngest, expressed in words, crying out, with his 
accent of southern France: — 

“Where have the others gone, then? Some one has 
stolen them.” 

“ Some one has stolen them,” Franquetot repeated. “A 
theft has been committed here in my shop, in our shop,” 
he insisted. “When Monsieur de Lingendes counted 
these cursed bonds and found only thirty-two, I should 
have been willing to drop dead on the spot. He was 
very good about it. I must say that. ‘You made a 
mistake in counting them at first, that is all,’ he said 
to me. ‘No, monsieur le comte,’ I replied to him, ‘my 
men were there, they counted them with me. There 
were thirty-seven bonds.’ He tried to make me feel 


34 


MONICA 


better: ‘I was absolutely unaware of the existence of 
this money/ he said. ‘If you had not told me, I should 
never have known that the five bonds were missing. 
Let us suppose that M. Jolibois’ — I had mentioned 
you to him, Admiral — ‘found only thirty -two, and we 
will call it thirty, to make a round sum — for here are 
two bonds, one for him, the other for his comrades. 
Take these, and consider it settled. Do not think any 
more about the five others.’ ‘Not think any more 
about them, monsieur le comte?’ I said. ‘But I am 
responsible for them. I shall make it good with my 
own money, if I do not succeed in discovering the 
thief.’ And I shall keep my word. You will help me, 
mes enfants, will you not? I know that it is not any 
one of you, just as you know that it is not I. And to 
think if I had locked the drawer this could not have 
happened! It is my fault, then. And think of my 
having had pieces of furniture here that were worth five 
thousand, ten thousand francs! I have had a Boulle 
clock here. We have always left everything open, 
have we not? And we have never lost a pin! Ah! 
what a misfortune this is! But who is the thief? 
Who is it?” 

“It must be some one who knew about the bonds 
being found,” judiciously remarked Chassaing, the hus- 
band of the concierge of the rue Pierre-Leroux ; and he 
added, with some embarrassment : “ I told the story to 
my wife, I ought to tell you that. Monsieur Franquetot; 


MONICA 


35 


but I did not think it was any harm. She told all 
the people in the house. But I didn’t say anything 
about the drawer.” 

“Nor I,” said Avron, the husband of the laundress. 
“ My wife was just going to carry home the linen when 
I came in. And I told her the story, too. But I didn’t 
mention the place.” 

“Nor I,” said Espitalier, “and besides, my wife has 
not seen anybody.” 

“For my part,” said the Admiral, “I didn’t open my 
mouth about it, and glad enough I am, patron^ that I 
didn’t!” 

“You did well,” replied Franquetot, who had listened 
to these successive confessions with unconcealed disap- 
proval. “You meant no harm, my lads,” he continued, 
turning to the others, “but, all the same, it is very 
likely that if you hadn’t chattered, the papers would 
have all remained in their envelope. You didn’t men- 
tion the drawer? But it sufficed that some one knew 
that the money was here, and came to search for it 
while we were all at breakfast ; and as the drawer was 
unlocked — oh, you foolish gossips! The concierge 
declares that no one came in, but how does he know? 
They were all at breakfast, too, and were not looking. 
I forgive you on one condition,” he added, “and that is 
that you swear to me to keep it absolutely secret about 
the theft. That is the only way that we can catch our 
thief. I shall notify the superintendent of police, and 


36 


MONICA 


he will notify all the money-changers of the quarter. 
Is it a promise?’’ 

‘^We swear it,” the three culprits exclaimed, with 
one voice, and the man from the South added: ‘^We 
have been to blame, patron. But — I am sure the 
others will feel as I do — at any rate, take back the 
bond that M. le comte gave you for us.” 

“Espitalier is right,” said Chassaing, “that will take 
off one from the five.” 

“It will take off two, with mine,” Jolibois said. 

“That is not fair,” interrupted Avron, “since you 
didn’t tell your woman about it.” 

“ You will keep your bonds, you three, and also you, 
Jolibois,” said Eranquetot, much affected. “It is my 
business to ask your pardon if I spoke harshly to you 
just now — you are hearts of gold! You have done me 
so much good — ah, you have, indeed! But I am the 
master of the shop, and I am responsible for the money. 
All I had to do was to take the key out. Silence as 
to the theft, and also to know who they were that your 
wives have spoken to, that is all I ask. I will go this 
evening to see the superintendent. And now,” he added, 
pulling off his jacket and putting on his long work- 
man’s blouse, “to work! for the honour of the Fran- 
quetot atelier and that Monsieur de Lingendes may have 
his things done this week!” Then, as his eye rested 
on the gondola arm-chair, he exclaimed, “ What an idea, 
to use a Leleu for a strong-box ! ” And, for the first 


MONICA 


37 


and the last time in his life, there was in his voice all 
the wrath of a Jacobin insulting an aristocrat, and with 
clenched fist he flung at the shade of the defunct lady 
of Lingendes — who had hidden in the cushion of her 
arm-chair the tempter bonds — this malediction: “Old 
sorceress, va!” 


Ill 


SUSPICION 

This need for secrecy in regard to the theft, in order 
to lull the anxiety of the culprit, appeared to Franque- 
tot so important that he did not let his workmen go, as 
usual, on the stroke of six, without having once more, 
strongly and urgently, insisted upon their silence. 
Then, when he was alone, his first act was to go him- 
self and relate to his wife the incredible event. It 
should be said, in excuse of this contradiction, that in 
consulting FranQoise, he obeyed, not so much the need 
— which, after all, is but natural — of having a confi- 
dant, as that of asking advice. We have seen that at 
the first moment the idea had occurred to his mind of 
going to report his loss to the superintendent of police. 
Then, suddenly, this step had appeared to him fraught 
with too serious consequences. The police being noti- 
fied, there would at once be a domiciliary visit to the 
atelier, and not only the workmen would be examined, 
but also the concierge, and even the neighbours. The 
whole quarter would know that a theft had been com- 
mitted in the Franquetot atelier, and to the cabinet- 
maker the honour of his shop was his own personal 

38 


MONICA 


39 


honour. We have seen how, at the mere thought that 
an object of value had not been safe with him, all his 
pride as the head of an establishment was wounded, and 
how deeply ! It was natural, therefore, that even in his 
first dismay, he should have hesitated about taking a step 
whose compromising results he had instantly perceived; 
it was equally natural that this repugnance should in- 
crease upon reflection; and he now sought to have 
reasons given him, in support of his concealed wish, 
by her who had been his companion in sunshine and 
storm for nearly thirty years. 

At breakfast he, too, had talked of nothing but the 
Admirals lucky find in the cushion of the gondola arm- 
chair. Besides, had not the two girls. Marguerite and 
Monica, been themselves present at the discovery? By 
chance they had not been present — the door of the 
smaller atelier happening to be closed just then — at 
the conversation which followed Franquetot’s return, 
after the second discovery, that of the theft; and so 
he was able to reconcile his own weakness and the 
strict injunctions he had given to his men, by urging 
upon his wife that she should not repeat this part of 
the story to “the children,” as he called them — unit- 
ing the two in the same protecting word as he united 
them in a common affection: — 

“I will be mute as a carpiaw,” said the Auvergnat 
woman, “ although Gote is as wise as a little judge ! ” 
Madame Franquetot always called her daughter by this 


40 


MONICA 


abbreviation of Marguerite, and Monica she called Mon- 
niaUf which means, in patois^ “sparrow.” The name of 
Saint Augustine’s venerable mother, the grand Christian 
woman of the farewell at Ostia, was thus transformed 
into a sobriquet which, in earlier days, on the peasant 
woman’s lips, had been a caress, and had now become 
an expression of contempt. Monniau, spoken gently, 
was the little shivering bird for whom the compassion- 
ate hand scatters crumbs on the window-sill; spoken 
roughly, it was the teasing little creature whose noise 
is so tiresome, and whom the woman of the house 
hastens to drive away. 

“No, indeed; I should not think of telling it to the 
Monniauy” she continued; “mademoiselle would imag- 
ine that we suspected her.” 

“Neither Gote nor Monica has anything to do with 
the subject,” Franquetot replied. Although not very 
observing, his sensitiveness was too acute for him not 
to suspect, nevertheless, a strong hostility, on his 
wife’s part, toward the adopted child; and every time 
he perceived a trace of this he at once turned the con- 
versation. “ We are talking about the superintendent of 
police. Would you advise me, or not, to notify him?” 

“Notify the police?” cried Fran^oise, “and have the 
gendarmes come into the house and make us the talk 
of the whole quarter? I should not dare to go to the 
butcher’s or the baker’s afterward. No, my man, we 
will find the thief ourselves; Mother Franquetot will 


MONICA 


41 


make it her business ; and if we don’t succeed, we will 
give him his bonds from our little means — the heir! 
But no police in our house, I beg of you; no police!” 

This entreaty of the sagacious countrywoman — to 
whom a legal investigation was the same object of ter- 
ror, after so many years in Paris, but what a Paris! 
that it would have been if she were still living in Pont- 
frede-en-Montagne — corresponded too well to the ap- 
prehensions of Franquetot for him not to yield to it. 
It was therefore agreed between the two that they would 
work unaided, in their respective ways, for the detec- 
tion of the criminal. Franquetot would obtain, on the 
morrow, the names of the persons to whom the wives of 
his workmen had spoken; and Frangoise, on her part, 
would try to ascertain, among the tradespeople, whether 
any of these women had been making unusual pur- 
chases. Franquetot would also go to the two money- 
changers of the neighbourhood and notify them. The 
first part of this programme was accomplished accu- 
rately, but without result, to the great despair of the 
honest cabinet-maker, to whom this theft, under his own 
roof, was physically as intolerable as it would have 
been to witness with his own eyes the destruction of 
some piece of furniture made by his beloved Kiesener. 

“If this keeps on,” he said to his wife, when they 
were alone together in the evening, “I shall make no 
more ado about it; I shall buy the five bonds. The 
largest of the bonds were for five hundred francs. They 


42 


MONICA 


make a total of twenty -five hundred. What, then! It 
is the same as if somebody had not paid me a large 
bill ; that is all. It has happened before, and it did 
not kill us ! I would rather do that than to be all day 
long boring gimlet-holes in my brain! I can’t handle 
my tools. I blunder and botch things. This must not 
last any longer.” 

Was it the prospect of the large sum of money to be 
disbursed that induced the greedy Auvergnate to break 
the promise she had made? Was she led into this in- 
discretion by the coaxing of her daughter Marguerite, 
who kept saying to her all day long, with that tone that 
calls out disclosures: “Is there anything that worries 
you, maman? You and papa seem so uneasy, as if you 
had been in some way unlucky.” 

A certain idea that she would not willingly accept 
— had it begun to rise vaguely in her mind from the 
moment the theft had been discovered, and was an in- 
sinuation enough to make her conscious of this idea, 
and no longer able to restrain herself? This, at least, 
is certain, that on the day succeeding this declaration 
which her husband made of his intention, the following 
conversation took place between her and her daughter, 
while the two were clearing the table, Franquetot 
having returned to the workshop to examine some fur- 
niture which had come in late in the morning, and 
Monica having gone out, under the pretext of buying 
some wool. 


MONICA 


43 


“ Don’t you notice she is always outdoors? ” Margue- 
rite had asked, adding, “especially in the last two days? 
It seems as if she were never still a moment.” 

“What makes you say that?” Madame Franquetot 
replied, fixing a look of keen inquiry upon her daughter. 

“ All sorts of little things. These last two nights it 
has seemed as if she didn’t sleep at all. I could hear 
her walking, walking in her room. I think she would 
have been very glad to have found the bonds that were 
hidden in the arm-chair!” 

“Did she ever speak to you about them?” the mother 
asked, with the same look, but more insistent than 
before. 

“No,” Marguerite said; “on the contrary, I spoke of 
them to her and she changed the subject. That is what 
made me think that the idea of their having been given 
back is unpleasant to her. She no doubt would have 
been pleased to have had them divided among us all. 
She wants money so much! She is so proud!” 

“It is true, she has changed so much,” replied the 
mother. “ She used to be such a sweet child. Grow- 
ing older has spoiled her. And your father and Michel, 
with their endless compliments, have done her a great 
deal of injury. I have said this to them, not once, 
but twenty times, <You will make her proud.’ And 
they have kept on praising her all the same. To mend 
holes in old rugs, — what a fine thing to do! And to go 
into ecstasies over old worm-eaten wood, — is that a 


44 


MONICA 


reason for putting on airs?” All injustice, in the small 
world as well as in the great, shows the same ingenuity. 
One thinks those changed toward whom one has one^s 
self changed. 

After a short silence, and with a sigh, which proved, 
after all, that her bitterness against Monica — caused 
really by the attentions her nephew, Tavernier, had 
lately been paying the young girl — had not entirely 
smothered the former affection, Tiens,^^ she said, “let 
us say no more about her. That is the better way.” 

“Besides,” Marguerite resumed, “I should not be sur- 
prised if she left us before long. She has an idea that 
she will have a fortune some day. She must have 
bought some lottery bonds with her money. Yester- 
day, when I went out after she did, about six o’clock, I 
saw her going into the money-changer’s in the rue de 
Sevres, probably to see if her number had drawn the 
prize.” 

“You saw her, yesterday, going into the money- 
changer’s?” asked the mother, in a tone that appeared 
greatly to astonish Marguerite; for she replied, with 
the air of a person who was tempted to withdraw what 
she had just said, so much afraid she was of having 
done harm to another: — 

“Why, yes, maman; but it was no harm in her. 
She may very likely have been saving money, as I 
have done. Papa is so generous to us. I don’t know 
how, though, because she dresses so much.” 


MONICA 


45 


“Listen, Gote,’’ replied Madame Franquetot, and the 
shame of being false to her promise stifled her voice, 
while at the same time the suggestive character of what 
her daughter had just said compelled her to speak 
frankly to Marguerite ; “ can you keep a secret? ” And 
as the girl nodded assent, the mother continued: “The 
thing you do not know,” and she lowered her voice to a 
whisper, “ is that a theft was committed in the atelier 
day before yesterday. Those bonds that Jolibois found 
— when your father counted them over with Monsieur 
de Lingendes, instead of thirty-seven, there were only 
thirty-two! Five were missing, and they must have 
been stolen from the drawer in the atelier, that day, 
between noon and two o’clock!” 

“Then it was one of those bonds that she went to 
sell at the money-changer’s yesterday!” Marguerite 
said, completing and giving open expression to the 
thought contained in her mother’s words. Then, as if 
shocked at herself for having had such a supposition 
enter her mind: “No, maman! It’s impossible. 
Monica has her faults. She is vain. She has too 
much self-confidence. She is sly. But she’s an hon- 
est girl and wouldn’t wrong a child out of a sou!” 
Then, hesitatingly: “And still, I remember she grew 
very red when she saw me coming along the sidewalk, 
and went very quickly into the shop. But no, if I had 
seen her take those bonds out of the drawer, I would 
not believe it.” 


46 


MONICA 


“For my part,” said Madame Franquetot, “I didn^t 
see it, but I do believe it. Yes, it is she; it is sbe! 
For it must be somebody. It isn’t you. It isn’t I. 
It is not your father, nor any of his men — I would 
answer for them as I would for you or myself. They 
offered, of their own accord, to give up the reward that 
Monsieur de Lingendes had sent them by your father, so 
that we should have only three bonds to replace, of the 
five that were stolen. — For your father will replace 
these bonds if they are not found. I know him and I 
know myself, too. I would replace them with my own 
money, if he didn’t. — The concierge swears that no one 
came into the house between noon and two o’clock. 
And you say that Monica, for two nights, has been 
restless and couldn’t sleep? And turns the subject, 
when you speak about the bonds? And went yesterday 
to a money-changer’s? And the one in the rue de Sevres, 
notice, when there are two nearer; and went secretly? 
It is she, I tell you ; it is she ! A child that we picked 
up in the street, — it’s the time to remember that, — 
that we fed by our labour, and brought up as our own 
daughter, and would never have told her that she was 
not our own, only that your aunt told it to you, and you 
to her, without knowing what you were doing, poor Gote ! 
And trouble enough you had about it ! But to-day is not 
the first time I have thought this; it is in the blood. 
Where did she come from? We never knew. To have 
left her in that basket, on that garden wall by night. 


MONICA 


47 


her mother must have been a fine tramp and her father 
a first-class vagabond — thieves both of them, perhaps. 
Ah ! when she comes in, she will have to talk. I will drag 
her, with my own hands, to the money-changer’s, if she 
doesn’t confess. And I’m going to call your father.” 

“No, mamaw,” Marguerite said, seizing Madame 
Franquetot by the arm; for the woman had made a 
gesture as if taking by the throat the adopted child. 
No sooner had her suspicions been aroused than she was 
at once convinced, so strong was the ferment of jealousy 
that had been insinuated into the peasant’s veins by 
the daily evidence of the other girl’s superiority over 
her own daughter. “No, mamaw,” Marguerite repeated, 
“you have no right to insult her in that way. You 
have not enough proof.” 

“And what proof do you require, yourself?” answered 
the exasperated mother, in whom the little details re- 
lated by her daughter — she had such a blind faith in 
her Gote! — had produced certainty. She had not ob- 
served the signs which ought to have aroused her dis- 
trust: the colour which had come into the girl’s cheeks, 
the savage fire in her eyes, the skilful dealing out of 
her revelations. How could she doubt the sincerity of 
the defence Marguerite interposed? and she kissed her 
daughter, saying, “You have always been too good to 
her, and she — ” 

Madame Franquetot did not finish the exclamation, 
in which was implied all her bitterness on account of 


48 


MONICA 


the interest Michel Tavernier was showing in the per- 
fidious Monica, to the detriment of his cousin, the gen- 
erous Gote. But the latter would not give her time to 
continue. 

“I am not good to her, I am just,” she said. ‘‘If 
Monica has not taken the bonds, she does not deserve 
to be treated with severity. If she has taken them — ” 

“But how can we know unless we speak to her?” 
said the mother. 

“ She is too shrewd, if she has done this thing, to sell 
them all five at once,” replied Marguerite. “She went 
to the money-changer’s to get rid, first, of one; and 
another day she will take a second.” 

“That is so,” Madame Franquetot agreed. “What 
a head you have! What good sense! The man that 
marries you will get a treasure. But where would she 
have hidden these papers? You heard her moving about 
in her room these last two nights, you said? They must 
be there ! ” And seeing that the clock on the kitchen 
mantelpiece marked at this moment quarter past one, 
she added: “We have a little time now before she 
comes in. Let us go and look ! ” 

Monica’s room, whither the two women hurriedly 
proceeded, to enter upon this secret and insulting search, 
protested, by its mere aspect, against an accusation so 
odious as that of a theft doubly criminal, inasmuch as 
it would have been committed by an adopted child under 
the very roof of her benefactor. 


MONICA 


49 


The house, which had been built by successive addi- 
tions, like most of the structures of this old quarter, 
had curious inequalities of level in the same story. 
Thus, there were two steps of ascent by which one 
reached this room, isolated in a kind of turret added to 
the main body of the house, and Marguerite’s room was 
next door, but lower. Monica’s was a spacious chamber, 
ending with an arched window toward the garden. Her 
refined taste had made this room almost elegant in its 
appearance, and everything in it spoke of Franque- 
tot’s teaching and the girl’s grateful appreciation. She 
herself, with fragments of rugs sewed together so that 
the colours harmonized well, had adorned with two 
centre carpets the red-washed floor, whose visible portion 
now shone brightly in the sunshine. The cabinet-maker 
had given her a little, old, wooden bedstead, which, in 
her leisure time, she had painted, and some cane-seat 
chairs, whereon her agile fingers had fastened, with 
ribbons, cushions covered with an old-fashioned flowered 
chintz, matching the window curtains. The pretty 
wall-paper was an imitation of cretonne. The blue 
and white tonality of all this was softened by the mild 
light of the spring afternoon. Although a multitude 
of engravings decorated the walls, not a nail had been 
driven. The scrupulous girl had with her own hands 
fastened a strip of wood along the top of the wall, the 
strip being also painted, and from it hung the braided 
cord that held the framed pictures. These engravings 


50 


MO^riCA 


had been presents from Franquetot, who had found 
them in some of the many journals of art that he had 
bought through love of his pursuit, and from the walls 
of the young girFs room they prolonged the conversa- 
tions of the enthusiast with his pupil. Here was the 
representation of a piece of tapestry by Francois 
Boucher; next to it, the reproduction of a chest of 
drawers by Caffieri ; beyond, there were decorative paint- 
ings by Le Prince and Berain. The famous Bureau du 
Roi was not missing, of course. The room had a blended 
aspect of dainty nook and of schoolroom. It was at 
once graceful and professional, like the whole existence 
of the patient, industrious girl. 

A crucifix above the bed, and with it a holy-water 
cup, in which there was a spray of box, told of the 
piety of the forsaken child; and a portrait of Franque- 
tot, in red chalk, signed by Michel Tavernier, told of 
the two affections dear to this young heart, — her love for 
the subject and for the artist. The most scrupulous 
neatness was manifested by many tokens: in the ap- 
pearance of the small objects ranged upon the table, 
which served at the modest toilet of the young in- 
mate of this bright room, in the lustrous bindings of 
the few books on the two shelves of the 4tag^re, in the 
abundance of little serge curtains that sheltered from 
dust the shelves on which lay the various articles of 
her meagre wardrobe. It was all very humble, very 
poor, but there was about it a certain air of aristocracy 


MONICA 


51 


which once more irritated, as it always had done, the 
rude peasant nature of Frangoise Franquetot. For she 
called her daughter’s attention to the appearance of the 
room, as they entered, saying to her, with a tone that 
betrayed almost a personal resentment : — 

“Wouldn’t one think it was the apartment of a 
princess?” 

“We have only a few minutes,” Marguerite replied; 
“you search the bureau, mamaw, while I look in the 
wardrobe.” 

With this, Madame Franquetot began opening the 
drawers, one after another, where Monica’s linen lay 
carefully folded under bunches of lavender, while Mar- 
guerite opened two bandboxes that were on the shelf of 
the armoire. She then pretended to look on the floor, 
under the dresses, and under the bed; and finally re- 
turned to the wardrobe, saying: “You see, maman, we 
don’t find anything; you were mistaken. I was sure 
you were.” Then, striking the skirts as they hung 
from the pegs, she cried out, as if suddenly distracted : 
“This is queer! What is this? There is something 
thick, like papers”; and taking down the skirt, she 
held it out for Madame Franquetot to examine also. 
Taking it in their hands the two women perceived 
that there had been sewn into the lining an object 
which felt like a package of papers. To snatch 
scissors from the table and rip the cloth was matter 
of a few minutes only, and Marguerite drew out a 


52 


MONICA 


package wrapped in newspaper. Opening it, the bonds 
appeared. 

“One, two, three, four — and a fifth one, which she 
took out to sell! Oh, the wretched girl!” cried the 
mother, “ it is she who has stolen them ! ” And before 
her daughter could restrain her, she had rushed to the 
staircase, screaming for Franquetot. 

“Coming! ” replied a voice from the ground floor, and 
Franquetot opened the door of the atelier. “Is the 
house on fire, la maman, that you scream like that? I 
am busy. If you have anything to say to me, come 
down.” 

“The stolen bonds are found!” cried Marguerite, in 
turn. 

“The bonds are found? Where? How?” Franquetot 
asked, springing up the stairs, four steps at a time, 
without having thought to put down the tool he had 
been using. The revelation made by his daughter had 
so overpowered him that he trembled from head to 
foot. He saw the two women standing just outside of 
Monica’s door, which was open. He had not the time 
to repeat his question; solemnly, imperatively, Fran- 
Qoise had grasped his arm, and led him into the room, 
and now pointed to the open wardrobe, the ripped lining 
of the dress, the bonds. 

“There is where we found them,” she said, after this 
too eloquent pantomime. “ Here, in the lining of this 
skirt, — Monica’s skirt; and it was hanging in the back 


MONICA 


53 


of Monica’s wardrobe. It was Monica who did it! 
There are only four here. She has sold one.” 

Where is she?” said Franquetot, after a silence 
that was terrifying when one knew his natural open- 
heartedness, and how quickly his slightest feelings ex- 
pressed themselves, ordinarily, in face and gesture and 
action. He repeated, “Where is she?” and dropped 
into a chair as if stunned by the blow he had just re- 
ceived. That Monica, — the baby whom he had found 
in the street, the girl whom he had brought up with so 
much affection, had made a sharer in his own enthusi- 
asm, had trained in his own knowledge, — that Monica 
had committed a theft, a theft which was to his detri- 
ment, was a thing so inconceivable, so monstrous, that 
he revolted against the evidence, and when his wife 
had replied: “How do we know where she is? She 
has gone to get her money, I suppose,” he exclaimed: 
“No! I don’t believe it! We must wait till she comes 
back. She will explain it all.” 

“You are like your daughter,” the mother replied. 
“ She would not believe it, either. But is this her room, 
tell me that? Is that her dress, I ask you? Did Gote 
see her, or did she not, going into the money-changer’s 
in the rue de Sevres yesterday, and going stealthily?” 

“You saw that. Marguerite?” the father asked. 

“Yes, father,” said the girl, “yesterday, late in the 
afternoon.” 

“And she went stealthily?” 


54 


MONICA 


‘^She pretended not to see me,” Marguerite answered; 
“ but then, why should she have blushed up to the roots 
of her hair?” 

“But when could she have taken these bonds, and 
why?” Franquetot asked. 

“ When? ” said the mother, “ why, while we were at 
breakfast. Don^t you recollect she left before we had 
finished, just as she did to-day, saying she was going 
out for a walk? Ask her, herself, where she went. 
And why? My poor Hippolyte, you are always so 
blind! Look at this room, mon ami. Is this a work- 
ing-girPs room, I ask you? And these fine clothes?” 
pointing, as she spoke, to the dresses in the wardrobe. 
“And all these folderols?” And again she pulled 
open a drawer. “Mademoiselle likes fine things, that 
is the whole story; and must have them of the best, as 
if she were a lady. It is not the first time I have had 
my eyes open, I can tell you. It is all her tricks to 
catch our poor silly Michel, the simpleton 1 She thought 
you would not count the bonds a second time, and she 
could sell them, one by one, and buy finery. Can you 
understand noio ? ” 

The furious creature had not finished her accusation, 
overflowing with long-accumulated maternal jealousy, 
when the sound of a door opened and shut below, and 
a step on the stairs stopped her suddenly. From vari- 
ous motives the three persons gathered in Monica’s 
room felt themselves compelled to silence at her ap- 


MONICA 


55 


proach. She was coming, a little out of breath from 
running quickly upstairs, for she stopped for a minute 
on one of the steps; then she noticed her door half 
open, and with her musical voice called out, “Is that 
you, Gote?” and pushed the door wide, with a smile on 
her delicate lips, which changed into an expression of 
almost terrified surprise when she saw that her parrain 
and marraine — as she called her adoptive parents — 
were there in her own room, awaiting her, amid the 
disorder of opened drawers and wardrobe, and Mar- 
guerite standing by, and turning her eyes away, not 
able to meet the other’s glance. 

“Monica,” Franquetot began, making a sign to his 
wife to shut the door, “what I have to say to you is 
extremely painful to me. You know that we have 
always treated you, FranQoise and I, as if you were our 
own child, and that Marguerite loves you like a sister. 
In the name of that affection, I implore you to answer 
me frankly. Whatever you have done, I am ready to 
forgive you, if you will open your heart to me. Do 
not tell me a lie, my child; that is all I ask.” 

“I have never told you a lie, parrain , the young girl 
replied. The colour came into her cheeks as she lis- 
tened to Franquetot. She had no thought of what an 
outrageous accusation had been made against her. But 
she had, it is true, upon her conscience the secret of 
her innocent romance with Franquetot’s nephew Michel. 
During these last two days, and again just now, this 


56 


MONICA 


secret romance had been passing through decisive epi- 
sodes. To tell the truth, she had been having many 
stolen interviews with the young sculptor in one of the 
streets that lie behind the apse of the church of Saint 
FranQois-Xavier. At this moment she had just returned 
from one ; and though, in the course of these interviews, 
in broad daylight, between half -past one and two o’clock, 
nothing indiscreet could happen between herself and the 
young man whom she now considered her Jiancij the 
mere fact that these meetings had been clandestine dis- 
turbed the lovely child. Evidently Franquetot had 
heard of it, and feared some misconduct. They had 
come to look in her room for some token of an intrigue, 
love-letters, perhaps, — while the truth was that if she 
had kept secret her engagement to Michel, it had been 
to spare Marguerite and Madame Franquetot, in a 
scrupulousness for which she was to pay dear, inasmuch 
as, at this moment, it led her to say the most unlucky 
of all possible things: — 

will tell you all, but I should rather do it some 
other time.” 

“Do not listen to her, Hippolyte,” Madame Franque- 
tot interposed wrathfully . “ She is caught ! Let us get 

through with this at once.” 

“My child,” said Franquetot, “when I went to the 
house of Monsieur de Lingendes, day before yesterday, 
to return to him the bonds that Jolibois had found in 
the Leleu arm-chair, we discovered that five of them 


MONICA 


57 


were missing. There had been no one in the atelier 
but the workmen, la maman, Marguerite, you, and 
myself. The guilty person, therefore, must be one 
of these eight.” 

‘^Ah, parrain!” cried the orphan. The cruel look 
of her adoptive mother which she encountered at this 
moment arrested upon her lips the indignant protesta- 
tion she was about to make. She understood that she 
was more than suspected, more than accused. Again 
the colour rushed to her face. She was a foundling, 
harboured as a matter of charity. She knew this, and 
the shame of her situation was the deepest and most 
painful feeling in her soul. An impulse of wounded 
pride, not unnatural to an outcast, or to one regarded 
as such, mastered her; and, instead of defending her- 
self, she said: “You suspect me. It is reasonable that 
you should. Well! since you have begun to search my 
things, will you go on?” 

“We have searched,” Madame Franquetot exclaimed, 
“and we have found.” 

“Yes, my child,” Franquetot resumed, and this time 
his voice had that grieved astonishment of a man who 
has been expecting to meet with certain feelings in the 
person with whom he is talking, and has found others : 
“You are well aware that this dress belongs to you. It 
was hanging in the wardrobe, which is also yours. 
Four of the stolen bonds were sewn into the lining. 
There they are. Here is the place where they were 


58 


MONICA 


found. I do not accuse you. But this matter must be 
explained to me, both for your own sake and for mine.” 

As he spoke he held out to the accused girl the skirt 
which had been turned wrong side out. She took it 
with a hand that trembled with emotion. She looked 
at the kind of pocket cut open at one side, and still 
showing the stitches of the basting. The person who 
had done the work had indeed used a thread of silk of 
a kind which no one in the house but Monica possessed. 
But both silk and needle had been selected stronger 
than the work required; and this, on the other hand, 
was characteristic of Marguerite’s needlework. Be- 
sides, no one but Marguerite knew the place where 
Monica kept her sewing materials. The evidence of 
the criminal plan that the envious girl had formed to 
ruin her at once came over the adopted child. She 
looked up, now deadly pale with the intense emotion 
this overwhelming discovery caused her. She looked 
at Marguerite, whose black eyes now savagely defied 
her; at Madame Franquetot, whose hatred, leading her 
astray, honestly, at least, it still grieved the young girl 
to perceive; at Franquetot, lastly, her benefactor, him 
to whom she owed everything. She opened her lips to 
speak, but her voice failed her. For a moment her 
features expressed all the anguish of a desperate con- 
flict. Courage failed her to denounce to the father, to 
the man whom she knew to be so deeply, so simply 
devoted to his family, the infamy which she had just 


MONICA 


59 


detected. She laid the dress down on a chair at her 
side, and said: “It is my dress, and the silk is mine. 
All that I can say is, that I did not do that work, and 
I have never touched those bonds. 

“Who, then, hid them in your skirt?” Franquetot 
asked. “ And if you have never touched these papers, 
why did you go yesterday to the money-changer’s in 
the rue de Sevres?” 

“I did go to the rue de Sevres,” Monica replied, “but 
not to the money-changer’s.” 

“You lie. Gote saw you,” said the mother. 

“Yes, I saw you,” Marguerite repeated. 

“What can you say to this?” Franquetot went on. 
“Five bonds were taken away. We have found four, 
here in your room. The fifth is missing. You were 
seen to go into a money-changer’s. You say, no. Let 
us go and see the man. It is the easiest way.” 

He rose as he spoke and turned to leave the room. 
Again the girl’s face showed an interior struggle of 
extreme intensity. She also took a step toward the 
door, as if agreeing to be thus confronted, which would 
naturally have been her own demand after her denial. 
Then she stopped abruptly. The same idea which 
before had kept her silent as to the kind of stitches 
made in the skirt, again seized her : to go to the money- 
changer’s would result either in the revelation of Mar- 
guerite’s conduct, or perhaps the discovery for herself 
of a deeper and more ingenious contrivance to ruin her. 


60 


MONICA 


She remembered that the evening before, Marguerite, 
on some pretext, had borrowed, in going out, her hat 
and cape. It was evening, and what if the money- 
changer should remember the dress, and not the face! 

“Parmm,” she said, “it is not worth while. I will 
not go.’’ 

“You will not go?” said Franquetot; and now he 
began to speak angrily. “And why not?” 

“I cannot answer you,” the girl said. 

“But tell me this,” he exclaimed furiously. “Are 
you innocent or guilty?” 

“I am innocent,” she said. 

“Then prove it,” he replied, with the same angry 
tone. “Explain to me how these papers got out of the 
drawer in the workshop for us to find them here. Ex- 
plain what you were doing in the rue de Sevres, and 
why you are not willing to be confronted with the 
money-changer. You must vindicate yourself, if you 
can, unhappy child ! ” 

“I cannot,” the young girl said. 

“You cannot? But then, you must confess,” replied 
Franquetot, grasping her wrist with an unconscious 
violence, so irritated he had become. “Confess, I tell 
you ! ” 

“You will hurt me, parram,” said the brave girl, 
simply; and the words were enough to bring him to 
his senses. Dropping the slender wrist that his strong 
fingers had almost bruised, he grasped his head with 


MONICA 


61 


his two hands, as if to repress the mad thoughts that 
he felt seething within him; and he did this so vio- 
lently that the traces of his nails were imprinted above 
his heavy eyebrows. Then with a voice almost lifeless, 
such had been the violence of the passionate impulse 
which had just now shaken him, he resumed: — 

“I give you an hour to decide what you will do, 
Monica. You will remain here, alone in your cham- 
ber and reflect carefully on what I have said to you. 
If, in an hour, you have not decided, either to confess 
or to vindicate yourself, you will go away. If you con- 
fess,” he added, ‘‘even now, I will forgive you. I 
will buy a fifth bond, and neither Fran^oise, nor Mar- 
guerite, nor I, will ever speak of this to any one. You 
had a moment of insanity, that is all. If you do not 
confess, it is not insanity, but something else. I shall 
do nothing to harm you. I shall not require anything 
of you. I shall not give you up to the police. But 
you will never pass another night under my roof. And 
now, you must decide. And you,” he said, addressing 
his wife and daughter, “ understand that not a word of 
this is to be said to any living soul. I do not ask you 
this; I order it.” And his face betrayed, as he spoke 
these last words, such a tumult of conquered anger that 
the two women were frightened, and left the room 
silently, followed by Franquetot, who closed the door 
without even looking at Monica. 


IV 


THE PROOF 

The sound of footsteps had long since died away on 
the stairs, and Monica was still standing on the spot 
where the fearful address of her adoptive father had left 
her. The dominant emotion of these first moments, in 
her mind, was a very peculiar kind of suffering, which 
was connected with her whole emotional history for 
many past years. To explain her silence in this recent 
scene, and her resolution in the periods that followed, 
the general outlines, at least, of this very simple, but 
very human story must be clearly sketched. She had 
been ruled by a single idea, constantly recurring in her 

mind, which had given character to all her thoughts, 
since the day when she had learned, by a so-called indis- 
cretion of Marguerite’s, that she was not the own child 
of Monsieur and Madame Franquetot. It was from that 
time that she had begun, by degrees, to form the 
habit of calling her adoptive parents parrain and mar- 

mine, instead of papa and maman, as heretofore. She 
had insisted upon knowing the circumstances of her 
adoption, and from that moment the wound in her heart 
began bleeding — that wound from which the illegiti- 

62 


MONICA 


63 


mate child so often suffers, amid whatever favours des- 
tiny may have lavished upon him. No one thinks of 
his origin except himself, whose self-love is so on the 
alert, so ready to take offence at this point where 
everything causes pain. How, then, is it when the 
destiny is in itself so narrow, so humble, and the very 
bread that the child eats — the fatherless and mother- 
less one, the child without legal rights — is the gift of 
charity? With proud and combative natures this feel- 
ing of a radical and indestructible difference between 
themselves and other children — a difference produced by 
the thing for which they are most irresponsible, their 
birth ! — is transformed into an instinct of hatred and 
rebellion. They become anarchists or else criminals. 
With creatures like Monica, all gentleness and affec- 
tion, a morbid delicacy is developed, a shuddering sus- 
ceptibility, the constant apprehension of antipathy or 
contempt, an eager gratitude for the slightest kindness, 
a painful anxiety and reserve in the presence of hostile 
natures, a very keen desire for perfection that one may 
escape the slightest reproach. On this account Monica 
had sought to become what she now was — the most 
skilful workwoman at her trade; on this account she 
had lost no occasion to read and to learn; on this ac- 
count it was that everything about her and upon her 
revealed that scrupulous care, that most minute watch- 
fulness; on this account in the workshop atmosphere of 
her daily life she had had that reserve, those unvary- 


64 


MONICA 


ingly distant manners, that taciturnity, which made 
Marguerite believe that she was “sly,” and incurred 
Madame Franquetot’s displeasure, as being “haughty.” 
The mother and daughter thus translated the discomfort 
that was inflicted upon them by the constant presence 
of a sensitiveness which to them was absolutely incom- 
prehensible; for if, to the constant endeavour on her 
part to refine and improve herself more and more, there 
corresponded an ever increasing aversion on the part of 
Marguerite and her mother, it was, in fact, not to be 
wholly explained by envy. No doubt Madame Franque- 
tot had instinctively grudged to Monica the praises 
which she continually heard of the young girPs grace 
and talent and character, from her inconsiderate hus- 
band, from his nephew Michel, and from the visitors to 
the atelier. Marguerite, in the same way, grudged to 
her adopted sister the preference that was always shown 
to the latter above herself; but with both, that which 
had envenomed this impression to the point of rendering 
Monica’s presence physically insupportable to them was 
this feeling, as the years went on, of a character more 
and more incomprehensible. By a seeming contradic- 
tion, which, however, is easily explained on reflection, 
this incomprehensibleness which, it would seem, ought 
to produce only moral antipathies, is the commonest 
root of profound animal aversions. It is so because it 
renders the difference between individuals of adverse 
species more perceptible and, as it were, more concrete. 


MONICA 


65 


Monica had not only been to Madame Franquetot her 
daughter's rival, and a rival always preferred, and to 
Marguerite the same; she had been the creature of 
another race, the intruder, — the stranger ! 

Monica had felt the effects of this aversion of the two 
women long before she had been able to know its cause. 
The more she strove to be gentle, reserved, industrious, 
irreproachable, the more she felt herself hated. Then 
during the long hours of silence passed at her work, 
she had reflected, and had ended by attributing the un- 
friendliness of Madame Franquetot and her daughter 
to the stain upon her birth. Although she had not 
much time to read anything except works upon art, 
and scarcely ever attended the theatre, the few novels 
that had fallen into her hands, the few plays that she 
had seen, had sufficed to teach her how the world re- 
gards children born, like herself, outside of marriage 
ties. While she felt that her adoptive mother, and 
especially her sister, were very unjust, very cruel, not 
to love her, she could not escape a feeling of secret 
shame. It was true, after all, that she sat at the 
Franquetots^ table, slept under the Franquetots’ roof, 
through charity ! She had no claim to be there ! She 
felt, herself, that she was the stranger! 

If the master of the house had not been the excellent 
man that he was, if he had not treated her with that 
kindness in which her poor heart, always maltreated 
elsewhere in the house, had revived, had been refreshed 


66 


MONICA 


and reinvigorated, how quickly she would have gone 
away from that hearth where her presence was odious, 

— she could detect it in every look, in every gesture, 

— where her virtues did her injury and her most in- 
genious efforts to please were repulsed! But the old 
cabinet-maker was always so kind, so fatherly toward 
her! How could she have the courage to leave him, 
and, especially, to tell him why? She was too well 
aware that this true and fervent artist, whose faithful 
disciple she was, lived in a dream; that he understood 
neither his wife nor his daughter, nor even herself, 
much as he loved her. . She was aware, through an in- 
stinct of her delicate, womanly sensitiveness, that the 
day when Franquetot should see Frangoise as she really 
was, in the sour hardness of her peasant nature, and, 
especially. Marguerite, in the base meanness of her 
envious character, would be to him a cruel awakening. 
She had long had, toward this man who had been to 
her at once the most generous of adoptive fathers and 
a father to her intellect, an educator of her eyes, her 
fingers, her mind, the feeling of an obligation of 
which she could never acquit herself except by bear- 
ing in silence the griefs of which she was the victim 
in that home, for his sake, so that he might continue 
to move freely in that atmosphere in which she de- 
lighted to have him live. For the influence which 
emanated from the old enthusiast had completely won 
the docile and fervent girl. She, too, believed in Boulle, 


MONICA 


67 


and Cressent, and Oeben, and Riesener! She had the 
little thrill of real veneration before certain objects in 
the Louvre and the Garde-Meuble, which Franquetot 
had explained to her with an enthusiasm which she 
had taken with all seriousness. She shared this enthu- 
siasm and, most honestly, directed a part of it toward 
him whom she considered as the depositary of a tra- 
dition of art now almost lost. How could she have 
been willing to add anything to the harshness of a 
destiny which had permitted the successor of the mag- 
nificent dbSnistes of the eighteenth century to be born 
in an age incapable of understanding and employing 
him? 

These emotions, already so complex, were still further 
complicated since Monica had begun to be interested in 
Michel Tavernier, her benefactor’s nephew. She had 
known Michel from childhood. She had played with 
him when she was a slip of a girl and he was but a 
little boy, without suspecting that this childish inti- 
macy preluded one of those attachments which are all 
the stronger and more ardent because they have seized 
and captured us unawares. The idea of what he thought 
of her, now that she knew herself to be a foundling, 
had been so painful that this suffering had revealed to 
her that she loved him. From that time it was in vain 
that the proofs of Michel’s reciprocal affection were 
multiplied about herj the conviction that he could not 
love her with the entire confidence, the absolute esteem. 


68 


MONICA 


that he would have felt for the legitimate offspring of 
respectable people, had never entirely left her. There 
is to a woman who loves such delight in giving to him 
whom she loves — in giving him herself — something he 
can be proud of; and it is so exceedingly sad if she 
must say to herself, on the contrary, that he cannot but 
blush for her ! This was one of the two reasons which 
had made Monica hesitate so much on the brink of hap- 
piness. It had taken years for her to be willing to let 
Michel see how much she loved him, because of this 
very idea that she had scarcely the right to become his 
wife. The other reason had been one of those scruples 
of refinement which are known to very tender and very 
generous souls, who are incapable of returning hatred for 
hatred, and would feel themselves degraded in seeking 
revenge. Monica had had no difficulty in seeing that 
Madame Franquetot desired a marriage between Michel 
and Marguerite; she had become aware, with the sure 
instinct of a loving woman, that Marguerite, on her 
part, was in love with her cousin; and the more the 
mother and daughter were harsh toward her, the more 
repugnant it was to her to seem to triumph over them. 

And then, the invincible and sweet attraction which 
drew the two young people toward each other had 
obliged her to receive the avowal of the love that she 
inspired and to avow that which she felt. But the secret 
motives of her long hesitation had not ceased disturbing 
her, even then ; and for this reason her innocent engage- 


MONICA 


69 


ment to Michel had remained secret. She had continued 
to postpone the moment when Michel should come to ask 
her hand of Franquetot, her guardian. The poignant 
apprehension that later the young man might repent 
having married a foundling, the illegitimate and aban- 
doned child of unknown parents, still caused terror to 
the romantic girl, at the moment when her life was to be 
forever united to that of him she loved. The reproach 
of ingratitude that she would incur that day from 
Madame Franquetot — from the unjust woman who, 
nevertheless, had brought her up, had even for so many 
years been kind to her, up to the time of this rivalry 
with Marguerite — disturbed her happiness, too, in 
advance; and withal, she had a kind of pity for her 
adopted sister, and a hope, in spite of so many daily 
stings, that a reconciliation between them would take 
place previously. There are hearts, and Monica’s was 
one, for whom their joy is not a perfect joy if it cost a 
tear, even to their worst enemy. Why must it be that 
it is these very hearts which excite in savage ones the 
fiercest antipathies? The detestable act that Mar- 
guerite Franquetot had just ventured, in order to dis- 
grace the companion of her childhood and youth in the 
mind of her father, and especially in that of her cousin, 
is but a small, a humble episode of the endless strife 
which goes on, in all times, in all stages of society, in 
all situations, between the representatives of those two 
lines of souls, symbolized, in the Book of all wisdom 


70 


MONICA 


and all truth, by the two elder sons of the first sinning 
woman: Cain and Abel. And let no one consider this 
legendary reminiscence too solemn for a tragedy played 
among poor people, on a very humble stage, and spring- 
ing from a most commonplace incident! Are not all 
souls equal before the Judge, and equal, too, before 
passion and pain? 

Is it now understood how it was that this child of 
twenty-one, matured already by so long an experience, 
and by so many bitter refiections, found in herself the 
strength of soul to bear, without being crazed by it, the 
sudden shock of the most cruel accusation that could be 
made against a young and innocent creature? Is it also 
understood why her first suspicion had gone straight to 
the true culprit, this Marguerite, by whom she knew her- 
self detested? — Ah! but not to that degree, not to the 
machination of a villany so studied, so calculated! Is 
it understood, lastly, by what miracle of filial love, 
with the same affection for Franquetot as if she had 
been his own child, knowing about him all that she did 
know, having always feared that he would some day 
learn his daughter's true character, she had, at the 
moment for defending herself, felt that she had nothing 
to say? Would she have the strength now to maintain 
this attitude of heroic silence, adopted without reflec- 
tion, upon the moment, in one of those spontaneous 
impulses of self-sacrifice of which we should never have 
believed ourselves capable, and in which are summed 


MONICA 


71 


up countless aspirations toward self-devotion remaining 
till then unconscious and ineffective? If, during the 
next few minutes after this interview, Franquetot had 
returned to the room where he had left his adopted 
child crushed under the weight of this horrible calumny, 
it is very probable that, amid her tears, the truth would 
have escaped Monica; for, as soon as she was alone, 
there followed in her an indignant reaction of her 
whole being against the ignominy of which she was the 
victim. 

“ And Marguerite heard it all ! ” she said to herself. 

She saw me treated like that, and she had not a gleam 
of remorse for what she had done ! For it was she that 
took those papers; she sewed them into the dress: I 
read it in her eyes. It was she who went to the money- 
changer in my name, without doubt, and wearing my 
hat and cape. She must have put on a thick veil, so 
that she would not be recognized. Oh! what an out- 
rage! What an outrage! And only just now I was 
begging Michel again to wait awhile before our mar- 
riage should be announced, thinking it would give her 
pain and Madame Franquetot also ! I was too consider- 
ate! I will not be so any more. I will defend myself. 
I will denounce her. I will show them how the pocket 
was sewn, and that she sews in that way. And I will 
account for my time. Yesterday, after breakfast, I 
was with Michel in the rue Masseran. I will tell this. 
I will compel her to go with me to the money-changer^s. 


72 


MONICA 


If they do not recognize her face, I will make her speak, 
and I will speak. They will know our voices apart. I 
will tell Monsieur Franquetot what I have suffered for 
years. He will understand. He will believe me. He 
loves me! How very much he felt all this! How he 
will pity me when he knows all ! For he shall know it. 
This is too unjust! What she has done is insupportable. 
I cannot bear this — ” Then, beginning to sob, she 
moaned, “ What have I done that they should hate me 
so?” And sinking into the very same chair where, 
half an hour before, Franquetot had sat, overcome with 
grief at hearing his wife accuse this dear child, the 
young girl hid her face in her hands and began crying, 
crying, shaken from head to foot with convulsive sobs, 
in which her overstrained nerves found relief. 

A sound that came from the direction of the stairway 
recalled her suddenly to the reality of her situation. 
She believed that it was Franquetot returning; but it 
was only the workmen coming back. It was nearly 
two o^clock. The atelier came before her mind, as she 
had seen it every day for so many years, with its pic- 
turesque accumulation of old furniture, fragments of 
wood scattered in every direction, and the four men, 
J olibois, Avron, Chassaing, Espitalier, working and 
talking under the superintendence of Franquetot. She 
saw them looking at the patron, observing in his face 
the indications of poignant unhappiness. They were 
seeking its cause. They recalled the recent theft. 


MONICA 


73 


They noticed her absence. They, also, would believe 
her guilty if she did not defend herself. Tranquetot, it 
was certain, would say nothing to them ; but Marguerite? 
And then, this very afternoon, some one would come — 
Michel, who, in parting from her not two hours ago, 
had promised her this visit. He had the excuse of an 
order for his uncle. To him that uncle would speak 
freely. Michel would know that she had been accused, 
and that she had offered no defence. Could she endure 
to be thus disgraced in his opinion? No. A thousand 
times, no. She rose from her chair and bathed her eyes 
to remove the traces of tears, then left her room, intend- 
ing to call Franquetot and offer to go with him at once 
to the money-changer. Halfway down the stairs she 
stopped, and as she leaned against the baluster, a new 
succession of ideas began to pass through her mind. 

^‘And after that?” she asked herself. “When he 
knows the truth, what will he do?” Another picture 
came before her : she saw the face of the benefactor to 
whom she owed everything, while she was denouncing 
his daughter to him. What grief would then awaken 
in those eyes ! How that father^s heart would be torn ! 
The mother would be there, and would take Margue- 
rite’s part. What words would pass between this hus- 
band and wife, whom she had always seen so united! 

“And after that?” again she asked herself. After 
that she saw herself resuming her place in the little 
atelier of tapestry, adjacent to the other. Her enemy 


74 


MONICA 


would be there no longer, after some fearful punish- 
ment of humiliation inflicted by this father, who had 
been so violent when there was but a suspicion as 
to the criminal. What would it be when he should 
have the certainty that the theft had been committed 
by Marguerite, and with what aim! The picture grew 
clearer, more definite. Monica again beheld the work- 
men, now suspecting this disgraceful story, their con- 
tempt for Marguerite, who had never been greatly 
beloved by them, and Franquetot among them, suffering 
from this contempt which he could not but see on their 
faces, — a contempt directed toward his own child ! 

The tender respect for this great generous heart’s 
self-deceptions, which had always held back any com- 
plaint on the lips of the adopted child, once more took 
possession of her with sovereign power; and she went 
back again to her room, incapable — she felt it in every 
fibre of her being — of ever striking this blow at him 
who had picked her up, a very small, frail, miserable, 
abandoned thing, had saved her, had reared her, had 
protected her, had loved her. Ah! let her suffer, be 
slandered, misunderstood, persecuted — but let him 
never know it! 

What was she to do, however? Amid the coming 
and going of these contradictory feelings time was mov- 
ing onward. The clock from the neighbouring convent 
of the Benedictines, whose strong, clear tone Monica 
knew well, struck half-past two. In fifteen minutes 


MONICA 


75 


Franquetot would be there again, to question her as he 
said. It was then, and at the immediate prospect of 
this interview, where she must not speak, where she 
was not sure of strength to remain silent, that the 
young girl felt awaken within her that irresistible im- 
pulse of flight, that need of being elsewhere, of putting 
distance between herself and an insupportable situation 
— a physical outbreak of the instinct of self-preserva- 
tion in the creature too feeble for resistance, as blind 
and overmastering as an animal instinct. Monica did 
not parley with this sudden madness; she did not say 
to herself that to go away thus, with an infamous ac- 
cusation hanging over her, was almost equivalent to 
confession. No. With an eye keen as that of a savage 
seeking a trail, she glanced around the room. She per- 
ceived a little leather travelling-bag, and into it she 
threw the few things immediately needful, and also 
some letters, — those from Michel, — and some of the 
tools of her trade, needles and wools, and her savings- 
bank book. From a corner of the lower drawer of her 
bureau, which had chanced to escape Madame Franque- 
tot’s strict search, she took out a flat box, where she 
had been accustomed to keep the money that she liked 
to have in the house. It contained exactly a hundred 
and seventy-eight francs. She enclosed a hundred and 
fifty in an envelope, and left it on the table, plainly in 
sight, after writing on the outside : “ To M. Franquetot, 
a hundred and fifty francs toward replacing the missing 


76 


MONICA 


bond; the other three hundred and fifty shall be sent 
to-day or to-morrow.” She had selected this sum of 
five hundred francs because it was the highest that had 
been mentioned in the atelier at the time the bonds 
were discovered in the cushion of the arm-chair. This 
thing being done, she came out from her room, closing 
the door as carefully as an escaping criminal might do, 
and crept noiselessly downstairs. 

The staircase ended in a passage, from which a door 
opened into the atelier. The window which gave light 
to the passage opened into the garden. This window 
was partly open. Monica opened it wide, and, very 
easily, jumped down into the garden, where, fortu- 
nately, at the moment, there was no one. She knew 
that it communicated with the courtyard of a large 
house in the rue de Baby lone. She now began to run, 
keeping close to the wall, concealing herself behind a 
row of trees clipped as a shelter, where the early foliage 
was still too scattered to conceal her from sight if there 
had happened to be any one on the watch. But there 
was no one; and, reaching the end of the garden, the 
fugitive bravely opened the grated door, crossed the 
courtyard, and passed the room of the concierge without 
being observed. 

She then hailed a passing cab, and was driven to the 
office of the savings bank in the rue Saint-Romain, 
where she knew she could obtain the money credited on 
her book. She then gave the cabman the address of 


MONICA 


77 


the gare Montparnasse, having planned that by dis- 
missing the cab there, and going on foot, her travelling 
bag in her hand, to look for a room in one of the hotels 
in that neighbourhood, she would be taken, naturally, 
for a traveller who had just arrived by train. Her ex- 
pectation was correct ; and when she took possession of 
her room, in the sixth story of a lodging-house which 
she had selected as at once the cheapest and most decent, 
she could see from her window that the railway clock 
indicated only a few minutes after three. It had taken 
her but forty minutes to carry out this plan of escape. 

Though very innocent and pure, Monica was not at 
all ignorant. Having lived in a Parisian faubourg and 
among working people, she knew what dangers threaten 
a young girl alone, when she is pretty and friendless 
and has her living to earn. In leaving the house in 
the rue Oudinot, as she had just done, she condemned 
herself to an existence which might be very hard if she 
did not at once marry Michel Tavernier. All her future 
now depended on what the young man would think of 
her. Under the effect of the kind of panic which had 
hurried her away from the place where Pranquetot 
would expect to see her and talk with her again, she 
had entirely forgotten the visit to the atelier which 
Michel was about to make. He would learn in her 
absence, before he had seen her or heard a word from 
her, both the accusation that had been made against 
her and the fact that she had left the house. What if 


78 


MONICA 


he should believe this accusation? What if the proofs, 
so skilfully arranged by Marguerite’s villany, should 
have an effect upon his mind? The poor girl, always 
haunted by the thought of her illegitimacy, felt her 
heart sink within her, and a cold sweat come out on 
her forehead at the thought. That Michel loved her 
she was very sure. And still, how many times had 
she asked herself whether there was not in the depths 
of his nature a secret undervaluing of her on this ac- 
count! How she had dreaded the discovery some day 
of a trace of this unconscious contempt! Ah! if she 
were to meet it now, it would be only too well accounted 
for ; but, also, in her present critical position, it would 
be too bitter. 

Without any definite process of reasoning, Monica 
was conscious that this first interview with her lover 
would be a decisive test as to her future happiness or 
misery. If he did not doubt her, even in her absence 
and with so many seeming proofs against her, she would 
be sure that the cruel prejudice — the very thought of 
which made her suffer so acutely — did not exist in this 
generous heart. If he did doubt her, on the other 
hand, certainly she would not be angry with him for 
this mistrust, but how could she ever be willing to 
marry him? How could married life be happy, where 
the husband had not entire confidence in the wife? 
And this supreme, absolute confidence — did not her 
origin debar Monica from inspiring it? This was the 


MONICA 


79 


tragic and poignant question that the poor girl had 
often asked herself; and now fate had brought to her 
an opportunity to have it answered — and how unspeak- 
ably frightened she was ! 

In any case, there must now be no delay. Even if 
Michel should not be shaken by the accusation made to 
him, at least he would suffer from it. He would be 
very anxious about her. If he must doubt her, the 
brave child preferred to know it at once. Her first 
idea was to go in search of him at his studio, not very 
far from the gare Montparnasse, about halfway in the 
long and populous avenue du Maine — the point of de- 
parture for many a poor artist like this one, not far 
removed from the artisan. An instinctive modesty, 
however, prevented the young girl from doing this. 
She ventured, however, on a step from which she had 
hitherto drawn back : she wrote to her lover, asking him 
to meet her at eight, the same evening, in that quiet 
rue Masseran where they had often walked already, 
but by day. After she had written this note, in the 
form of a little blue despatch, in the nearest sub-station 
of the post-office, she still hesitated. In what mood of 
mind toward herself would Michel be when he read 
this single sentence, “Michel, I beg you to meet me 
this evening, at eight o’clock, in the usual place,” and 
her signature? Would he receive this telegram before 
or after he had been at Franquetot’s? Suppose he were 
out when the message came, and did not return in 


80 


MONICA 


season to meet her at the time designated? Suppose, 
believing her guilty of theft, he refused to come at her 
call? How long the afternoon seemed to Monica, as 
she struggled with these questions, and struggled too, 
with a very different kind of emotion, at the thought of 
going thus to meet her lover in the darkness and soli- 
tude of evening. She dispelled these anxieties as best 
she could by occupying herself with making the few 
purchases necessary to complete her provisional resi- 
dence for a night in this hotel chamber, of which, 
besides, she was a little afraid. The landlady's look 
when she had given for name and address, simply, 
“Mademoiselle Monica of Versailles,” had made her 
blush, and still more the further question, “Mademoi- 
selle Monica what? ” And she had replied, “ Mademoi- 
selle Marie Monica,” thus making her second baptismal 
name serve as a patronymic. The woman of the house, 
used to travellers of all kinds, fortunately had not in- 
quired further, nor had the clerk at the station when, 
after despatching the message to Michel Tavernier, the 
young girl had asked to send a post-office order for three 
hundred and fifty francs to “Monsieur Franquetot, 
sculptor in wood, rue Oudinot,” and the clerk had 
asked, “From whom?” And again she had replied, 
“Mademoiselle Marie Monica of Versailles.” He had 
looked at her, and so had the landlady, with a curiosity 
almost insulting. But what were these petty annoy- 
ances compared with the distress that she would suffer 


MONICA 


81 


if, when she met Michel, she should read in her lover’s 
face that he doubted her? 

When she arrived, at the moment designated by her- 
self, at the corner of the rue de Sevres, and could see, 
under the trees of the quiet rue Masseran, her jianc&s 
figure, her anguish was so great that she could scarcely 
go toward him. But he had seen her, also, and came 
forward rapidly. How cruel to Monica was that half- 
minute while he was coming; but what happiness, what 
a great wave of joy, flooded her poor, wounded heart 
when the young man was within two steps of her, and 
their eyes met in the half-darkness of the approaching 
night! Before he had said a word, the slandered girl 
knew already that he did not believe her guilty. The 
sculptor had one of those anxious faces not infrequent 
among artists of humble origin, where one detects the 
effort of a mind too much on a strain ever to expand 
freely, but with a certain pathetic energy in them that 
has its beauty. He was lean and not very tall, with a 
face pale from long hours of labour, and rendered still 
more colourless by the thick masses of very black hair 
under his soft felt hat. He was dressed, rather as a-n 
artisan than a student, in ready-made clothes, to which 
the suppleness of his movements gave a certain grace. 
His extremely white and regular teeth, the healthy red 
of his lips, the soft, silky beard, told of youth, just as 
the long, slender fingers revealed the clever adept, the 
skilful and adroit modeller. For Monica, brought up 


82 


MONICA 


as she had been to admire, to venerate the great mas- 
ters of ornament of an earlier day, this face of Fran- 
quetot’s nephew and favourite pupil was always radiant 
with the splendour of talent. Never had she looked 
at him with such a rapture of affection as under the 
spring leafage of the trees in the rue Masseran, in 
the late twilight, and heard him saying to her; — 

“I have heard it all — I know what you have been 
accused of. I have been at the house. They wanted 
to show me a dress that belonged to you, and the 
stolen bonds, and the money that you sent back to 
them; and I said, ‘I will not hear a word until after I 
have seen Monica; but this thing I am sure of, she is 
not guilty.’ Ah, mon amie^ how much you must have 
suffered ! ” 

“ Yes ! ” she said. “ But how I am repaid for it all ! 
It is almost too much happiness. It hurts me — ” and, 
to save herself from falling, she was obliged to lean 
against her lover’s shoulder and cling to it with both 
her hands; and in another second she had dropped her 
tired head upon them. The young man threw his arm 
around her to support her; her lovely, delicate face 
was very near his own, and their lips met for the first 
time in a kiss which was truly that of their marriage 
contract. For the first time there was nothing else but 
hope and confidence in Monica’s soul. “You do not 
know the good that you have done me,” she said, slip- 
ping modestly from his embrace, and taking his arm to 


MONICA 


83 


walk with him. ‘^It was the test, do you see? Ah! 
now I am sure of you.” 

“You were not sure before?” he asked. “And what 
test are you speaking of ? ” 

“Why, this,” she replied, and in a voice Michel had 
never heard before, a whispered outpouring of all the 
long, secret suffering of her youth, she went on : “ When 
a girl is like me, without knowing who her father and 
mother were, she is so afraid, always, you see. I have 
never said this to you before, but ever since I began to 
love you, and that was a long time ago, I have never 
been a day without thinking of it — without trembling 
at the thought that if ever in my life there should come 
a time when I needed to have you trust me, completely, 
without any proof, perhaps you would hesitate — on 
account of that. If you knew how many nights I have 
spent crying for not having a father and a mother, like 
other girls, and having them respectable people that I 
could resemble ! When I ran away from the rue Oudinot 
this afternoon, I was only afraid of one thing, — that I 
should find you were suspicious of me. Ah! but how 
good you are, my love ! How noble and generous ! ” 

“I love you,” he said, and, with his free hand, clasped 
the little feverish hand that rested on his arm ; “ I have 
loved you for a very long time — all my life, I think. 
See how wrong you were not to tell me all your thoughts. 
What made you afraid was just what made me most 
devoted to you. But you are growing too nervous now,” 


84 


MONICA 


he continued. “Try to calm yourself. You know we 
must prove your innocence and make it clear to every- 
body.” 

“No! ” she exclaimed, standing still. “Never, never! 
Listen, I will explain, to you, everything; but I must 
have your promise, by all that you hold most sacred, 
by your affection for me — ” 

“A promise?” the young man exclaimed; then, feel- 
ing that she trembled violently, he added, “You know 
perfectly well that I will always do whatever you 
wish.” 

“I want you to swear to me,” Monica said, and she 
repeated the words with great energy, “^o swear to me 
never to repeat to any one, — do you understand me? — 
to any person whatever, what I am going to tell you.” 

“I swear it to you,” Michel replied. 

“Thank you,” she said, clinging to him more closely, 
and, as if relieved of an immense burden by the young 
man’s oath, she resumed walking, and now opened her 
heart to him fully. She told him all the other griefs 
concerning which she had been silent, as also concerning 
the most serious of all, both Marguerite’s increasing 
hatred of her for some years, and the mother’s par- 
tiality, and also the father’s blindness to it all. She 
told him how she had striven to disarm this hostility 
— but unsuccessfully — by industry, and little kind at- 
tentions, and by humility, and her terror lest her kind 
benefactor should ever know the unjust treatment from 


MONICA 


85 


which, she had suffered. She told him of her surprise 
on finding the father and mother and daughter all col- 
lected in her room, and then what followed, and the 
ingenuity of her rival’s plan to ruin her, and her own 
reason for not defending herself at first, the mental con- 
flict that followed, then her resolution to go away, and 
the details of her flight. 

While she went on talking Michel could not restrain 
the expression, now of his indignation, now of his pity. 
When she had finished, it was he who stopped, to 
implore her : — 

‘‘You must let me off from my promise, Monica. My 
uncle must know all this. I am not willing to have 
him believe that my wife has been a thief. I cannot 
have it.” 

“You promised,” she said, “and I will not let you 
off ” ; and as the young man made a gesture of protest, 
“You will keep your word, I know,” she said gently. 
“On my part, I have faith in you. Now,” she said, 
laying her little hand on his mouth, “ let us not discuss 
these things any more. I need to be petted a little 
after this horrible day. But the end of it is so happy ! 
Now you will walk back with me to my door. In the 
morning I shall go to look for work. I shall find it 
across the river, or on the quaiy among the dealers in 
antiquities. I have three addresses. Then I shall take 
a room a little farther away, in the faubourg, back of 
your house, so that I shall not be likely to see any one 


86 


MONICA 


from the rue Oudinot. As soon as we decide, we will 
arrange about your going to your uncle’s to remove my 
little things and to announce that we intend to be mar- 
ried. It is I, now, who want it to be as soon as pos- 
sible. Ah! my love, I can almost bless Marguerite 
for what she did, for it was that which gave me the 
chance to know what I do know now I ” 


V 


FRANCOISE FRANQUETOT 

As we have seen, the first impulse of Michel Ta- 
vernier was one of revolt against the oath of silence 
which he had made to Monica. It is so hard for a 
lover to know the girl he loves has been calumniated 
and not to speak in her defence when he believes her 
— when he knows her — to be innocent! After he had 
accompanied her to the door of her hotel that evening, 
and had parted from her with as much respect as if, 
instead of being two children of the common people, 
completely, absolutely free, they had been an engaged 
couple of a higher social grade, watched over by the 
strictest of parents, this revolt grew strong within him. 
Instead of turning to the left, toward his studio in the 
avenue du Maine, he had only to follow the boulevard 
Montparnasse as far as the church of Saint Fran^ois- 
Xavier, and he would be opposite the rue Oudinot. It 
was ten o^clock, and at this hour Franquetot, under his 
lamp, would be striving to make out from an engraving 
the style of some piece of furniture relegated to a far- 
off foreign museum which he should never visit; or per- 
haps might be studying, in some special book, the life 

87 


88 


MONICA 


and works of one of the little masters of another cen- 
tury. Michel was sure to find him at home, and not 
yet gone to bed. The temptation to enlighten him at 
once as to the incredible plot laid against Monica was 
so strong that the lover walked as far as his uncle’s 
door. Arriving there he took the bell-handle in his 
hand. Then he hesitated about ringing. It was not 
so much the scruple of his promise that stood in the 
way, as it was an awakening of pity, like that which 
had restrained Monica. He, also, like the young girl, 
respected and cherished the deeply sensitive nature of 
the old cabinet-maker. He pitied him still more than 
she did, for he knew more of him, and their relations 
had been sadder, more trying than the girl suspected. 
It was, most of all, the memory of these relations that 
made the young man hesitate. Like Monica, he had 
always esteemed it a sovereign injustice of fate that the 
devotee of Eiesener should hold no higher place than 
he did. Being himself also an artisan, just passing into 
the artist condition, he knew from his own experience 
how straitened was the man of genius, imperfectly edu- 
cated, who has no companionship because no one is like 
him, at once too refined for his own class and not enough 
so for a higher class — whom time disappoints, since he 
must needs live, must earn his bread, must spend his 
strength and his days in paying tasks. He himself, 
better taught, better supplied than his uncle with tech- 
nical instruction, thanks to his uncle, when would he 


MONICA 


89 


find leisure to work at that bas-relief in marble of which 
he dreamed so ardently, and of which he had not yet 
completed the model, a dying Saint Monica talking with 
her sons? One can see by what simple association of 
ideas the young pupil at the Brothers’ School, and then 
the student at the Beaux-Arts, who knew no more Latin 
than theology, had chanced to conceive such a design. 
He had then sought for the Confessions of Saint Augus- 
tine at the Library Sainte-Genevieve ; and though he was 
still unprepared to appreciate the sublime beauty of the 
interview at Ostia, he had had heart enough to feel the 
human nature in the aged mother’s cry, recovering from 
her swoon: ‘^She came to herself and saw my brother 
and me standing near her, and like one who seeks for 
something, she asked, ^ Where was I?’ And as we were 
silent, crushed with grief, she said to us, ‘You will bury 
your mother here.’” 

For three years the sketches for this work had been 
accumulating in Michel’s portfolios, without his being 
able to devote himself to the work as he desired to do, 
on account of the petty remunerative orders that he had 
to fulfil. He was often sad on this account; and when 
he did work at the bas-relief he was even more sad to 
feel a constant disproportion between the antique theme 
fallen by chance into his unlettered mind and the powers 
of that mind. He had the realist’s talent, a singular 
facility in fixing a likeness in clay ; and, by an anomaly 
not uncommon among artists of humble origin, he did 


90 


MONICA 


not prize at its real value this gift, of a slightly coarse 
vitality. An abstract poet throbbed within the half- 
artisan. At least, he was young, and though he suffered 
because he could not fairs du grand artf’ as he in- 
genuously expressed it, the hope of enfranchising him- 
self was a solace. But Franquetot! He, too, had had 
an ideal, an ambition for this grand artf^ which to 
him consisted in creations that the sculptor regarded as 
inferior. But what of that, so long as the old cabinet- 
maker, for his part, regarded them as superior? Notwith- 
standing all the prejudices contracted at the Beaux-Arts, 
Michel had too keen a sense for beauty and elegance not 
to feel what there was truly rare and exquisite in his 
uncle’s taste, and not to pity him for not having been 
able to follow it completely. Franquetot had in him 
perhaps the genius of a Boulle or a Caffieri. Perhaps 
he might have created a style, composed of pieces worthy 
of museums, had the conditions of his life been differ- 
ent. Instead of that, his existence had been spent in 
repairing, with admirable fidelity and intelligence, the 
furniture signed by others! The sadness of this fact 
Michel had long felt, as I have saidj he had felt it as 
Monica did — more even than she had ever done. But 
this feeling was complicated with another, for the 
nephew of the sculptor in wood. Having inherited, at 
the age of eighteen, from his mother, a very small sum, 
which, however, gave him a little leeway, — six hun- 
dred francs annually, to be exact, — Michel had decided 


MONICA 


91 


to abandon Mnisterie for sculpture, and in doing this, 
had disappointed the hopes of his instructor. In giving 
up carving in wood to enter the school in the rue Bona- 
parte and devote himself to marble, he had taken away 
from Franquetot that which was to have been to the 
older man the compensation for his own disappointed 
life, — a pupil, namely, who, trained by himself, might 
execute the work of which he was himself incapable. 
The admirer of Kiesener had cherished the dream of an 
old age in which, aided by Michel, his disciple, he 
should be able to compose the few pieces that he had 
in mind, and that he would sign with his name. The 
nephew and the uncle, to this end, would work in the 
atelier together. In deserting this post of assistant and 
heir, the young man had obeyed the most legitimate, 
the most natural of instincts, that which at a given 
moment makes the son separate from the father, the 
childhood’s friend desert his early comrade, the pupil 
the master — when, of the two personalities, the one 
would stifle the other. Michel Tavernier had thus 
abandoned Franquetot because he felt himself perish- 
ing in these surroundings of industrial art. He had 
not freed himself without a certain remorse. The 
disappointment that he could read in his uncle’s face, 
though it had never been expressed in words, had had 
its effect upon his conscience. 

And now, as he was about to ring at the door in the 
rue Oudinot, all this little moral drama presented itself 


92 


MONICA 


anew before the mind of Monica’s lover. Was be now, 
after having been to this sincere, humiliated artist the 
cause of an almost daily repeated pang, to be to him 
the cause, also, of an anguish so cruel, so lasting : that 
of a father, blind heretofore, and suddenly made aware 
that his daughter has committed the vilest of outrages 
— and this, when the victim of it herself begged for 
his silence, insisted upon it even, and when he had 
promised it to her with the most solemn attestation? 
And Michel’s hand, which had been lifted to grasp the 
bell-handle, fell back without having pulled the bell. 
^‘Monica is right. Monica is right,” he repeated to 
himself, as he went his way homeward, passing over 
the very spot where, twenty-one years before, almost at 
the same time in the year, his uncle had picked up the 
foundling asleep on the straw in her basket. “ I could 
not tell him that.” 

This conviction had been so strong that the follow- 
ing day, when he again saw Monica, he did not try to 
persuade her to abandon a resolution which continued, 
however, to be extremely painful to him. During the 
whole of that day, which the two lovers spent in going 
about Paris, looking first for employment for Monica 
and then for a room for her, the young girl did not 
make a gesture or say a word without renewing in him 
the grief of knowing that such a creature was the vic- 
tim of calumny. That which he found most touching 
of all was the deep tranquillity with which he saw that 


MONICA 


93 


she was filled. She was sad — he saw this in her look 
— at having been obliged thus to flee from the house of 
her adoptive father; sad, also, at having been so basely 
slandered by the companion of her childhood, and so 
rapidly judged and condemned by Madame Franquetot; 
and she was very sad at the grief which she knew that 
Franquetot himself was feeling. But the certainty 
that she was loved by Michel with absolute confidence 
gave her that calm of the strong attachment against 
which no menace prevails. To feel that by his affec- 
tion and his presence, one gives this serenity to a 
woman’s heart, is truly to feel one’s self beloved by her. 
And then, the girl’s innocence, her reserve so simple 
and modest in a situation so perilous, raised to its high- 
est degree the passion of him who was to be the husband 
of this beautiful and maidenly creature, and his indig- 
nation against his cousin’s outrage. For he had no 
doubt himself that Marguerite was the guilty person. 
Even if Monica’s conviction had not suggested it to him, 
his own observations had too long made him aware of 
the legitimate daughter’s hatred for the adopted one. 
It was toward this guilty Marguerite that the pledge 
of silence imposed by the calumniated girl would be 
most difiScult to keep. Monica was so well aware of 
this that it was the subject of her special cautions to 
Michel when, two days after her flight from the rue 
Oudinot, she decided to send him thither. She had 
taken a furnished room in the rue de Vanves, very near 


94 


MONICA 


the avenue du Maine. From the beginning of the next 
week she would have a place in the repair workshop of 
one of the great dealers in antiquities of the quai Mala- 
quais, where she would earn four francs a day and the 
noonday meal. These arrangements would last until 
their marriage. 

“We ought to communicate with your uncle as soon 
as possible,” she had said to Michel, “first of all to 
relieve his anxiety about me. In spite of all that they 
have made him believe, he loves me. And, then, I need 
to have all my little things. No one but you could get 
them for me. And then, you know, your uncle is my 
guardian, and if there should be difficulties, the sooner 
we encounter them the sooner we shall get done with 
them and the sooner we shall be married. But remem- 
ber your promise. You will enter into no discussion as 
to that frightful thing. You will not speak, and you 
will not let yourself be spoken to, about it — not even 
by Marguerite.” 

“I will keep my word until you release me from it,” 
Tavernier had said. But although he had been per- 
fectly sincere in renewing his promise, he was greatly 
disturbed in mind when, about half -past one that day, 
he presented himself in his uncle’s atelier. It was the 
moment when he felt most sure of finding Franquetot 
alone. 

The old cabinet-maker was, in fact, in his workshop, 
employed in one of those little tasks which he took up 


MONICA 


95 


for his own amusement in the intervals of the work at 
which he and his men were employed together. He was 
cleaning a little chest in Vernis-martin. 

If Michel had had any doubt as to the pain which the 
recent occurrence had caused the uncompromising old 
man, he would have found proof of it in the manner in 
which he was received. Kobert Martin, the inventor of 
the method that bears his name, was, at the distance 
of a century and a half, one of Franquetot’s personal 
enemies. In ordinary times he would not have failed to 
fulminate against the system of decoration inaugurated 
by this master, against these landscapes which are not 
framed by anything in the structure of the piece of 
furniture. 

This particular morning, though he had, one may be 
permitted to say, literally the pretext in hand, he fired 
off no epigrams at the vernisseur du Roy ’’ praised by 
Voltaire, who sings of 

Ces fiers lainhris dores et vemis par Martin ! 

He only said to his nephew, “ Tiens ! is that you, my 
boy?” which indicated no desire to enter into a con- 
versation, aesthetic or otherwise. 

‘‘Yes, uncle, it is I,” replied the young man, with a 
kind of seriousness which did not even make the other 
look up. His evident intention to avoid all further talk 
gave way, however, as Michel continued. “Yes, it is 
I,” he repeated, “and I came to tell you some news. I 


96 


MONICA 


am going to be married;’’ and, as Franquetot still 
made no answer, he added, “I am going to marry 
Monica.” 

“You — are going to marry Monica? ” said the Mniste, 
His blue eyes flashed angrily under his bushy eyebrows, 
which contracted in a formidable frown. His Angers 
closed tight upon the bit of cloth with which he was 
polishing the little chest in Vernis-martin. But this 
was only for a moment, and vanished as soon as seen. 
“You marry for yourself, not me, my lad,” he resumed, 
going on with his work. “ Only you must understand 
that after what has happened, and from the moment 
that wretched girl left us as she did, she will never 
return here, and I shall never recognize her as a niece.” 

“Uncle,” replied Michel, in his turn infuriated, “you 
have just said a thing, in speaking of my fiancie, that 
I cannot pass over. No! My wife will never set foot 
in this house, but it is because I will never permit her 
to do so.” 

“Then,” queried the older man, with deep irony, and 
relinquishing his work, “ she has proved to you that it 
was not she who took the missing bonds? In that case, 
will you explain to me why she did not prove her inno- 
cence here, when I questioned her; why did she escape 
from the house by the window instead of waiting to 
speak to me, if she had anything to say in her own 
defence; why did she make restitution of the five hun- 
dred francs of the fifth bond? If all this conduct is not 


MONICA 97 

a confession, by what name do you call it? Speak; I 
will listen to you. But speak, I tell you!” 

“I have no explanation to give you,” the young man 
said. “All appearances are against Monica, I admit it; 
but I know that she is innocent, and the proof of this 
is that I am going to marry her.” 

“It is the proof that you are mad,” replied Franquetot, 
with a violence that was now uncontrolled, “mad and 
ungrateful ! Let me talk now,” he went on, seeing that 
Michel was about to interrupt him, “let me talk, since 
you will not! You can’t tell me what she said to you, 
because she said nothing. She wept. She swore to you 
that she was innocent, and you believed her because she 
is a pretty girl and you are in love with her, like the 
fool that you are! And you are going to marry her? 
As for the old uncle, you will never see him any more, 
— that is all; — ungrateful that you are ! I have not had 
to wait till now to know this and to know that you have 
no affection for me. If you had loved me, would you 
have left me as you did? Would you not have remained 
here to help me? But no; an Mniste, a cabinet-maker, 
is not fine enough for Monsieur Tavernier. To work in 
wood is to be an artisan. To work in marble is to be 
a gentleman. What does it matter if the poor uncle 
grows old all alone, and has no one to help him or to 
love him? But there are two simple hearts that are 
true to me — my wife and my daughter. They care 
nothing for Boulle and Oeben and Eiesener — and every- 


98 


MONICA 


thing that you two pretended to enjoy, you and Monica ! 
But they are faithful to me, and they will be my 
comfort.” 

The tone of grief with which Franquetot uttered this 
sort of imprecation completely upset Michel. It was 
frightfully cruel to hear his uncle express feelings 
towaj-d him which he knew existed, but not in so 
manifest, so acute a form. At the same time, he had 
to recognize yet once again, how deeply Franquetot 
loved his wife and daughter, and, hence, how wise and 
charitable was Monica^s decision as to her line of con- 
duct. One could not touch that affection without tear- 
ing the most sensitive, the most vital fibres of his heart. 
The young man remained silent therefore, the prey of 
an emotion which he must not even show, since he was 
not willing to reply to his uncle’s unjust reproaches. 
Would he have had the strength to hear more of this ; 
would he not have yielded at last to the necessity of 
speaking for himself and for Monica? He was saved 
from this temptation by the arrival — for it was now 
just on the stroke of two — of one of the workmen, 
whose coming interrupted this painful interview. This 
was Jolibois, the Admiral, who had known Michel 
as a boy. 

“I am not interrupting you, patron?” he asked; and 
as he knew too well the various expressions of Franque- 
tot’ s face not to perceive that a violent discussion had 
been going on between the uncle and nephew, he at once 


MONICA 


99 


concluded tliat Monica’s departure had been the subject 
of it. Since yesterday this departure had greatly occu- 
pied the atelier. Although Marguerite, fearing her 
father’s anger, had not yet dared to spread her infamous 
calumny, and Franquetot himself had cut short the 
possibility of her doing it at any later time by relating 
openly in the workshop that the missing bonds had after 
all been found in the drawer of the secretary hidden in 
the folds of a newspaper, Espitalier, the man from the 
South, had connected the story of the securities lost and 
then found with the absence of Monica. He was a 
talkative fellow, common and familiar, whom Monica 
had always somewhat intimidated and, consequently, 
offended by her attitude of reserve. Jolibois had de- 
fended the adopted child. However, he also scented 
some mystery, and had not dared, any more than the 
others, to make any inquiry of the master of the shop. 

To find him thus alone with Michel, and the two evi- 
dently in an angry discussion, corroborated suddenly a 
conjecture which he had formed. For a long time he 
had suspected the little love-drama which was going on 
among the three young people, Monica, Marguerite, 
and the sculptor. He also had noticed that Madame 
Franquetot was hotly opposed to a marriage between 
her nephew and Monica. He therefore believed that 
the stormy conversation between the two men which his 
sudden entrance brought to a stand had no other subject 
than this ; and his delight at thus gaining a proof which 


100 


MONICA 


would permit him to show that Espitalier was in the 
wrong was so great that he could not help mingling in 
the conversation, by saying to Tavernier, “ You seem to 
be rather discomposed to-day, my little Mike ! ” by 
which friendly name the young sculptor had been known 
when he was but an apprentice. “ It is none of my busi- 
ness, and I don’t know what the trouble is. But what- 
ever it may be, keep on your track, my son, and it will 
come right. We have put this arm-chair in good order,” 
and he pointed to one that had been finished the day 
before, ^‘but it was brought in here rolled up in an 
apron; isn’t that true, Franquetot? It’s the image of 
life, my boy. Everything comes to pieces and is glued 
together again,” he concluded philosophically. 

“You see, uncle,” said the young man, making no 
reply to the journeyman’s pleasantry, and drawing 
Franquetot into a corner, not to be overheard, “ that this 
man already has his suspicions. The others are just 
coming. We can talk no more at present. I will reply 
to all that you have said to me — and it is most unjust, 
that I swear to you — another day. Now, I have only 
time for the first of the two questions which I came to 
ask you: shall you refuse, as guardian, to authorize 
Monica’s marriage to me?” 

“Yes,” was the answer. 

“You will then oblige us to take the legal steps?” 
said the young man. 

“You can take them,” Franquetot replied. “For my 


MONICA 


101 


part, I shall have done my duty. What is your second 
question?” he continued; “and make haste about it. I 
must go to work.” 

“It is in regard to Monica’s things,” said the young 
man. 

“You are to take them to her?” Franquetot asked. 
“That is no great matter! You can arrange about that 
with your aunt.” And opening the door at the foot of 
the stairs, he pushed his nephew out of the atelier, call- 
ing out : “ FranQoise ! Fran^oise 1 ” and when his wife 
appeared, leaning over the balusters, he added, “ Assist 
Michel about what he wants to do.” Then, without 
saying good-by to the young sculptor, he returned into 
the workshop and shut the door abruptly. 

“ What can I do for you, my good Michel?” said Madame 
Franquetot, in a tone as friendly and courteous as her 
husband’s reception had been arrogant: the tone of the 
mother who has a treasure of a girl to dispose of, and 
is speaking to a possible son-in-law ! She who had been 
the maid in a creamery still wore the head-band, the 
short petticoats, the thick, hand-knit, yarn stockings, 
and the galoshes of the brayaudes of her own country. 
Her reddish brown complexion had not been cleansed 
of its sunburn by the many years she had lived in the 
city. We may add, furthermore, that, winter as well 
as summer, the hardy housewife lived, from patron-minet 
to couvre-feu, with all the windows wide open; and with 
the great neglected garden, into which her kitchen 


102 


MONICA 


looked, she could easily believe herself still in the 
country. Her wolf’s eyes, small and brown, lighted up 
with all the fire of youth — despite her fifty-five years 
and more — this old face, tanned and, so to speak, 
honeycombed with great wrinkles. It was a really 
animal face and revealed a very primitive, very un- 
trained nature, but without that low craftiness which 
disgraced the face of her daughter. Habituated to 
command always, whether it were the flattering Mar- 
guerite and the gentle Monica or the dreamy Franque- 
tot, the Auvergnate hid no feeling of her soul; and as 
she just now had had in her voice and smile all the 
graces of welcome of which her rustic person was 
capable, as long as she was ignorant of the object of 
Michel’s visit, so her look and tone betrayed all the 
sourness of her rancour when the young man said to 
her, as he came up the stairs: — 

“ I have come to prepare for the removal of Monica’s 
things.” 

“Oh! she has gone to stay with you, has she?” the 
woman said. “I might have expected it.” 

“She is not there now, aunt,” Michel replied. “But 
she will be very soon, for I am going to marry her; and 
I came to announce my marriage to my uncle.” And 
before Madame Franquetot had been able to express, 
even by an exclamation, her amazement at this won- 
derful news, he went on: “I have to say to you at 
once, aunt, that I allow not the slightest remark upon 


MONICA 


103 


this, which is my irrevocable determination. Give me 
the key to mj jianc^e^s room. That is all I ask of you, 
and I will excuse you from saying anything whatever 
on the subject.” 

Michel had said these last words in a tone so impera- 
tive, and there emanated from his whole meagre per- 
son such a character of almost fierce resolution, that 
Madame Franquetot remained for a minute silenced by 
it. But her discomposure quickly changed into an 
attack of positive indignation at the manner in which 
he, whom she had selected so many years ago for a son- 
in-law, and who had thus disappointed her, suddenly 
conducted himself toward her daughter. Marguerite, 
attracted by the sound of voices, appeared from the 
adjoining room. She came forward to meet her cousin 
with extended hand, as usual. The latter, in presence 
of the slanderer, was no longer able to control his 
nerves. He looked at the girl, from head to foot, with 
the most insulting contempt; then, without taking any 
notice of her extended hand, turned his back upon her, 
and said to his aunt: — 

“Where is the key, please?” 

“Marguerite has the key,” cried Madame Franquetot, 
blazing out, “ and I forbid her to give it you. I forbid 
her! If your thief wishes to remove her things, let her 
come and do it herself. We have an account to settle, 
and I promise you I will give her a good setting-down, 
the hussy ! ” 


104 


MONICA 


“Aunt!” Michel interrupted furiously. He had 
grown very pale, and stepped forward with clenched 
fists. Then, stopping, he shook his head again and 
again, vehemently, as if to drive away the temptation 
that had just seized him to silence by force the woman 
who was insulting his fiancee, “No,” he said to himself 
in a very low voice, “no, no.” Then, addressing his 
uncle^s wife again, but as if she were a stranger: “I 
shall come again to-morrow,” he said, “to see about this 
matter. I shall bring a man with me, and the boxes 
and ropes that will be needed. I hope that you will 
have reflected, and that you will spare yourselves, — you 
and Monsieur Franquetot, — and that you will spare us, 
— Monica and me, — the disgrace of having the door 
opened by the police that we may take away what 
belongs to us. Do not drive me to extremities. You 
see that I am now perfectly calm, but I could not 
answer for myself if you ever speak to me again as 
you have just now done.” 

“ Oh, maman I ” exclaimed Marguerite, when the 
young sculptor had disappeared through the door which 
opened at the foot of the stairs. “ You see how she has 
bewitched him? You saw how he treated me? And 
you, maman, how he threatened you when you wanted 
to tell him about her! I tell you he will marry her! 
He will marry her! Nothing makes any difference to 
him, nothing, nothing! Oh! if we only could prevent 
it!” 


MONICA 


105 


“I will prevent it,” replied Madame Pranquetot. 
Then, after a silence in which her face assumed a sin- 
gular expressive look, she continued : Go to your work 
as usual. Your father must not miss this beggar girl. 
He is so crazy about his furniture that he would be 
capable of forgiving her, if he found that his work 
could not get along without her. But this marriage 
shall never take place. I will find a way, my Gote. 
Trust to me!” 

Exasperated still by what she regarded as her nephew^s 
outrageous conduct, the angry mother had on the in- 
stant devised a way, which she believed infallible, to 
prevent his marriage with Monica — a marriage doubly 
monstrous, it seemed to her : in the first place, she knew 
the feelings of Marguerite toward Michel, and she 
could not tolerate that there should be preferred to her 
daughter — who? An illegitimate child of parents com- 
pletely unknown; brought up by whom? By Margue- 
rite's own father and mother as a matter of charity! 
And, then, she believed, in good faith, that Monica had 
stolen the securities, and that the intriguing creature, 
so to bewitch Michel, as she evidently had done, must 
have lied to him shamelessly. If, now, there could be 
furnished to the young man an unquestionable proof of 
Monica’s falsehood, his blind confidence in her would 
give way to indignation against so much duplicity. 
This proof existed. To Madame Franquetot, as well 
as to her husband, the five hundred francs that Monica 


106 


MONICA 


had given them represented the price of the bond sold 
bo the money-changer. It was a restitution made in 
the first moments of terror to secure herself from a 
criminal prosecution. Madame Franquetot was sure 
that a money-changer would require a receipt before 
paying so large a sum, especially to a person unknown 
to him. It was this receipt, signed by Monica, that 
was to be that undoubted proof of crime, before which 
none of the fictions invented by the thief could stand. 

“I must have that receipt! But how shall I get it?” 
This question the determined peasant woman turned 
over and over in her mind as she went on washing her 
dishes. It will be remembered that she had sent her 
daughter back into the atelier at the accustomed hour, 
instead of keeping her to continue the conversation, 
however interesting it would have been to do this. Like- 
wise, she had gone on with her accustomed work, quite 
as if she were not suffering from the most intense ex- 
citement she had, perhaps, ever experienced in her life. 
It is one of the deep-rooted traits of the rustic nature to 
go on with the day^s work whatever may be the anxiety 
or the distress. Any one who had seen Frangoise give 
a final rub to her kitchen floor and then look at it with 
the glance of the diligent and satisfied housewife, would 
certainly never have suspected that she was proposing 
to take, her work once done, a very decisive and im- 
portant step. While she had been scouring, with sand- 
stone and a chemical preparation made by herself in 


MONICA 


107 


accordance witli an ancient recipe, the saucepan in 
which the morning meal had been cooked, she had been 
going over, in her own mind, the various procedures 
that could be employed, from an appeal to the police to 
a personal visit made by herself to the money-changer, 
and had finally decided on this latter. She would have 
been very glad to communicate this decision to her 
daughter, but she feared attracting her husband’s notice 
if she should go down into the workshop, or if she 
should call Marguerite to come up. She knew by in- 
stinct that he would forbid her to carry out her plan; 
and she did not want this prohibition to be made, for 
she would not have dared to disobey it. And so it was 
with stealthy steps on the stairs, and doors opened and 
shut with the precautions of an evil-doer — as Monica 
had done a few days before — that she went out of her 
house. She had put on, for the occasion, her Sunday 
gown, her most ceremonious bonnet, her black thread 
gloves ; and she had taken in her hand a little bag, con- 
taining identifying papers for herself in case of need. 
She was so disturbed at the thought of what she was 
about to do, unknown to her husband, that she felt her- 
self growing red at some joke made by the concierge on 
seeing her pass in her Sunday attire. 

Her anxiety redoubled when she reached the rue de 
Sevres, near the Bon Marche, and saw two shops of 
money-changers, one nearly opposite the other. Which 
should she enter? She went from one shop window to 


108 


MONICA 


the other, intimidated, she knew not why, by the glitter 
of the gold pieces heaped up in wooden bowls, and the 
figures on the bonds which were exhibited to the gazer’s 
eye. She decided on the smaller of the two shops, sim- 
ply because there were two women in attendance, one 
all gray -headed, the other all blond, a mother and 
daughter doubtless, and no man to be seen in the back 
room. It seemed to her she should be able to explain 
herself more easily; and, in fact, when she had opened 
the door, on which was visible, in metal letters, the 
engaging name of the money-dealer, Cadeau- Bonnet, the 
conversation that was going on inside was of a nature to 
reassure her as to the reception the gray-haired woman 
would give to her strange request. Madame Cadeau- 
Bonnet — for it was the patronne herself — was holding 
a consultation with a poor-looking person, a widow, 
apparently, clothed in black, who held in her hand a 
package of papers. 

‘‘If you will wait till Monsieur Cadeau-Bonnet re- 
turns,” the patronne was saying, “he will explain things 
to you better than I can. He will be here in thirty-five 
minutes. But I am sure that my advice is good. In less 
than three months each one of your bonds will be worth 
a hundred francs more than it is now. There is no 
good reason for the price being so low. We know 
this from the best authority. Do not be afraid. You 
have never yet lost anything by following our advice, 
you know.” 


MONICA 


109 


Such, is the patriarchal character which the handling 
of humble savings assumes in the popular quarters of 
Paris — which, in many respects, are so much like the 
provinces. The money-changer is, for the legion of 
petty clerks, servants, concierges, working-men, who 
lay aside every six months, every other year, a few 
bank-notes and desire to make them earn a little, the 
sole adviser as to all investments. The singular lack 
of initiative, which is one of the traits of the autoch- 
thonic Frenchman, manifests itself in his confusion of 
mind before the mysteries of speculation. Lucky he is 
to fall into the hands of honest people, like the Cadeau- 
Bonnets, who take no advantage of the sheeplike docility 
of their customer. Evidently the gray-haired woman, 
whose shrewd face expressed real goodness of heart as 
well, and whose dress revealed former habits of elegance 
and, doubtless, better circumstances, had never given 
her present customer anything but judicious advice, for 
the latter gathered up the handful of papers which she 
had just submitted for examination, saying: — 

I will wait, then, Madame Cadeau-Bonnet, but I am 
very much afraid — if I had not inherited these securities, 
I never would have bought them, that is certain. What 
I like is a piece of land, a house, something that you can 
see, and touch, and that will not run away.” 

“And you, madam e, what can I do for you?” said 
the patronne, addressing Madame Franquetot, as the 
other woman turned away from the little window. 


no 


MONICA 


FranQoise looked around her at the other persons who 
were now waiting their turn; she hesitated a moment, 
and then said: — 

“What I have to say to you, madame, is something 
entirely confidential, and I cannot speak before any other 
persons.” 

“Very well, I will see you inside,” said the money- 
changer's wife, after having scanned the face of this 
hesitating client. Her occupation had rendered her so 
good a physiognomist that she knew at once that the 
person she had to deal with was neither a fool nor an 
adventuress. She accordingly led Madame Franquetot 
into the little room behind the shop, which served her 
husband, herself, and her daughter, as their place of 
rest. Here they had their noonday meal. Here they 
wrote their private letters. A sewing machine testified 
that Mademoiselle Celeste Cadeau-Bonnet sometimes 
devoted herself to more feminine occupations. The 
wirework partition was hung with green serge, leaving 
free above it about a foot, just space to admit daylight 
enough to avoid using gas by day. 

Seated here, Madame Franquetot, after giving her 
name and showing her receipt for house rent, began re- 
lating the story which she had prepared in advance as 
justification of the step she was taking. It was a well- 
constructed tale, half truth, half falsehood, \ich as 
married women of her class in life are very capable of 
putting together and repeating. An orphan who lived 


MONICA 


111 


witli them had been sent by Monsieur Franquetot, four 
days before, to sell a bond. She had brought back a 
sum of money in regard to which they felt some doubt 
whether it were the exact sum or not; and Madame 
Franquetot herself had come to get the truth by looking 
at the receipt. 

“You mean the memorandum of the purchase,” re- 
plied Madame Cadeau-Bonnet, who at once observed a 
certain reticence in her visitor's words, and a trifle of 
embarrassment in the voice. In all shops of this kind 
the constant care of these petty stockbrokers is to avoid 
the purchase of stolen securities. This is not merely 
a matter of self-interest with them. It is a question 
of respectability; and when, by chance, such an error 
has been committed, they hasten to repair it without 
legal intervention, the better to prove that they had 
acted in good faith. Madame Cadeau-Bonnet there- 
fore desired to be satisfied on this subject, and, with 
some diplomacy, in her turn, she said to Madame 
Franquetot : — 

“ If the bond was sold to us this week, madame, the 
memorandum is there, with the others, but I cannot 
show it to you. We make no exception to this rule, 
except where there has been theft.” 

“There has been theft,” said Madame Franquetot, 
after second interval of hesitation, which was in itself 
an answer; “but I did not wish to say this until I was 
perfectly sure.” 


112 


MONICA 


^‘And what is the amount of the bond which was 
stolen?” asked the patronne. 

“That is something we do not know,” Madame 
Franquetot said ; “ it was one of a package of securities 
which were found in the seat of an arm-chair that had 
been sent us for repairs. But we know this, and with 
certainty, that it was sold for at least five hundred 
francs. That has been acknowledged.” 

“And who is the person who sold this bond?” 

“Mademoiselle Monica.” 

“And you say four days ago?” Madame Cadeau- 
Bonnet again inquired. Then, on an affirmative reply, 
she went into the front part of the office. She had left 
the door open, and Madame Franquetot perceived that 
she began talking with her daughter in a manner show- 
ing great displeasure. She then went to look for the 
memorandum, and on finding it, uttered an expression 
of surprise. Beturning into the back room with this 
sheet of paper, she showed it to the inquirer, saying : — 

“This is all that I find, madame. My daughter re- 
members that on Tuesday last, about six o’clock, she, 
being alone in the office at the time, bought for cash a 
bond of a person who gave her name as Mademoiselle 
Monica, residing rue Oudinot, in the house of Monsieur 
Franquetot. This person had her savings bank book 
in her own name, several envelopes of letters, and a 
receipt for rent made out to Monsieur Franquetot, the 
same probably that you have just shown me. She said 


MONICA 


113 


that she had been sent by her patron^ who had suddenly 
to make a payment. On seeing these papers my daughter 
paid the money. She was very wrong in doing this. 
She is only a beginner; she has no experience. But this 
bond cannot be the one you are looking for, for you speak 
of five hundred francs, and what we paid was only two 
hundred and fifteen. See for yourself.” 

Madame Franquetot took the memorandum, and there 
she saw : Comptoir Saint- Placide. G. Cadeau- Bonnet, 
changeur. Hue de Sevres 95, d V angle de la rue Saint- 
Placide. Achet4 de Mademoiselle Monique, 8 his rue 
Oudinot, le 7 avril 1900, — 2/4 Ville de Paris 1871, 
107 fr. 50 — 215 fr,” and upon the stamp of receipt, 
the person who had sold the bond and received the 
money had signed “Monica.” 

The mother of Marguerite had no sooner beheld this 
signature than an expression of amazement appeared 
upon her face. Again she looked at the figures “215,” 
and again at this signature. The change in her face 
was so alarming that Madame Cadeau-Bonnet exclaimed : 
“What is it, madame? What is the matter? You are 
ill? ” The questions brought back the poor woman to 
a consciousness of the situation. She returned the 
memorandum: “Thank you, madame,” she said. “It 
is not what I supposed, certainly. There is a mistake.” 
And, as if she had been herself the person guilty of the 
forgery which she had just discovered, she went out of 
the shop with bent head, stammering apologies, while 


114 


MONICA 


the two women looked at each other amazed; and the 
mother said to her daughter : — 

The good woman made a mistake, it seems. Or else 
there is something more in this than we understand. 
For once, I shall not tell your father. But be sure you 
never do such a thing again. It is far too dangerous, 
buying a bond of a person we do not know. You have 
the proof of it.” 

“The young lady was dressed so neatly,” replied 
Mademoiselle Celeste Cadeau-Bonnet. “Her hat and 
cape were so very nice. Her papers were all in such 
good order, the envelope of each letter so carefully 
cut! It was only once, for a moment, that I had the 
least doubt: when I made her sign the memorandum. 
I thought then that she hesitated, and was going to 
refuse. But it was only for a moment, and then she 
took the pen and wrote so readily. See — ” 

All students of human nature who have followed 
closely the proceedings in courts, especially in the prov- 
inces, are familiar with this singular law in criminal 
mentality among the lower classes, and especially among 
peasants : to an extreme complication in plan revealing 
the most inventive and subtle strategy, they invariably 
unite a clumsiness in means which is astonishing, so 
illogical is the lack of forethought which it betrays. 
Thus the impulsive Marguerite, while displaying a real 
genius for wickedness in this attempt to ruin Monica 
and, by disgracing her, prevent her marriage, had left a 


MONICA 


115 


signature at the foot of the memorandum whose produc- 
tion would suffice to destroy at one blow the whole edifice 
of her schemes. 

It must be said, however, that in going to offer the 
bond at a money-changer’s shop, she had not been aware 
that she should be obliged to write anything whatever. 
In her surprise, on being called upon to give this receipt, 
she had had that moment of hesitation which Celeste had 
remarked; but, fearing to compromise herself, had not 
ventured to refuse the signature. She had, however, in 
writing the name, instinctively taken the precaution to 
make the letters a little larger than her own habitual 
handwriting. With that incredible feeling of security 
which, in these passionate and primitive temperaments, 
accompanies the execution of their projects, she had said 
to herself that if the matter were ever investigated she 
would thus be able to deny what she had done. And 
then, in the savage ardour of her hatred, this point had 
passed entirely from her mind. It had never occurred 
to her that the signature might be examined when she 
was not present, and so would not have the opportunity 
to suggest an explanation; and, moreover, with a fact 
added to it which attested still more positively the 
innocence of her victim. This fact was the discrepancy 
between the two hundred and fifteen francs mentioned 
on the memorandum and the five hundred francs offered 
by Monica for the repurchase of the bond she was accused 
of having stolen. 


116 


MONICA 


In the mind of Madame Franquetot, who had come to 
the comptoir Saint-Placide with the sure hope of finally 
obtaining absolutely certain proof against Monica, this 
sudden revelation of two circumstances so completely 
favourable to the young girl would naturally, and as a 
matter of fact did, produce an entire change. 

^‘But it was Marguerite’s writing!” she said to her- 
self, as she went along by the shops and stalls of that 
crowded portion of the rue de Sevres which leads from 
the rue du Bac to the boulevard. It was a little larger, 
but it certainly is hers! And the other one could not 
imitate it like that. And why should she? How can 
I tell? It is very strange, however! But if it was 
Monica who sold the bond,” she was beginning to 
admit, however reluctantly, that there might be a doubt 
as to the person who had committed the theft, ‘‘why 
did she give us back five hundred francs instead of two 
hundred and fifteen?” 

Although her brain had been obscured, as has been 
only too evident from the beginning of this humble 
domestic tragedy, by the most unreasoning of partiali- 
ties, the fondness of a mother jealous on her daughter’s 
behalf, this peasant woman from the mountains was 
supremely honest. FranQoise Franquetot was capable 
of many bad things, but only on condition of her being 
unconscious of their wickedness. She was incapable of 
committing the slightest wrong act knowingly. Her 
face, like that of some rough, faithful animal, was the 


MONICA 


117 


living mirror of her character. There was in her a 
blending of instinctive brutality and uncompromising 
uprightness. It was this sincerity, rude and uncouth, 
but so savoury, that had made her endured, and, more 
than that, loved, by a man so refined and sensitive as 
Franquetot. She could, in her stupidity, misunderstand 
the plainest realities. But to know that she had done 
any harm,” as she herself would say, to any one, were 
it her worst enemy, and not make amends for that harm, 
was a thing impossible for her. 

Not once during her walk homeward through that rue 
de Sevres, and then the rue Kousselet, to her abode in 
the rue Oudinot, was she tempted to say : “ So much the 
worse for Monica! Why didn’t she defend herself?” 
Yet that would have let her off from prolonging an in- 
vestigation, at the conclusion of which her slow but 
honest mind perceived a vague something, indefinite, 
unknown, but even now, in the mere presentiment of it, 
intensely painful to her. For she had, indeed, some- 
thing like a presentiment of what the result must be, 
though without as yet putting it clearly in words. But 
unless the truth had appeared to her, though confusedly 
and remotely, from the moment she recognized Margue- 
rite’s handwriting on the stamp of the memorandum, 
would she have experienced that sudden terror under 
the eyes of Madame Cadeau-Bonnet? Would she have 
trembled so at the idea that her daughter’s hand had 
indeed written that name? Would she have had that 


118 


MONICA 


shock, as if before a suddenly opened abyss, that irre- 
sistible need of following it up, of getting home as soon 
as possible, and questioning her daughter, and under- 
standing it all? As eagerly as she had sought to prove 
the case against Monica when she believed her guilty, 
so resolutely now, in the presence of a sign that her first 
belief had been mistaken, was she determined to sift 
this matter to the bottom, even though the result should 
be the most mortifying to herself. 

And if it was Marguerite’s signature,” she concluded, 
having spent the first half-hour after reaching home in 
going over the case, by turns bringing up and abandon- 
ing the various suppositions of which it admitted, “ if it 
was her signature, then it was she who sold the bond. 
And, then, it must have been she who took it — and the 
others, too? And hid them in the lining of Monica’s 
dress? To save herself and ruin the other? No! That 
is impossible.” 

The reflections which had led the prosaic Franqoise 
to say these things to herself, involving as they did so 
painful a suspicion, had been profound indeed, for the 
frugal house-mother, perhaps for the first time in her 
life, had not changed her street dress for her usual, 
well-worn skirt, substantial jacket, and blue apron. 
She had taken a seat, without even removing her bon- 
net, and there she remained, the heavy soles of her large 
shoes placed flat upon the red floor, her strong, gloved 
hands open upon her knees, in that ruminating attitude 


MONICA 


119 


of tlie peasant, which her Sunday array, in the midst of 
the shining copper of the saucepans and the glitter of 
the dishes, rendered still more picturesque. 

She emerged from this meditation with the brusque 
motion of one who is determined, at all hazards, to 
put an end to a torturing uncertainty, and went into the 
passageway to knock thrice with the broom-handle on 
a certain spot in the floor. This part of the landing 
was exactly over the tapestry workroom. For many 
years Madame Franquetot had employed this method 
of calling her daughter without going downstairs and 
without incurring the expense of putting up a bell. A 
minute had scarcely elapsed before Marguerite appeared. 
She could not restrain an exclamation of surprise on see- 
ing her mother dressed to go out, and at once asked her 
whither she was going and what decision she had come 
to. 

“ I am not going anywhere. I have just come in,” the 
mother replied. The two women had gone now into the 
kitchen. Madame Franquetot perceived at the end of 
a shelf a broken bowl in which were placed an old pen 
and a small bottle of ink, which she was in the habit 
of using for her accounts, with what spelling one may 
imagine ! She had quickly found a leaf of white paper, 
and she now placed these writing materials on a table, 
first clearing it from various utensils with which it had 
been covered. Then, pushing forward a chair, she said 
to her daughter, — 


120 


MONICA 


“Sit down there and write. 

“What shall I write? asked Marguerite. 

“Only your name,” was the reply. 

“But why?” said the girl, astonished. 

“Write your name, and you will know directly.” 

When her daughter had obeyed, Madame Franquetot 
took up the paper and looked at the signature with ex- 
treme attention. She then laid the paper again before 
her daughter, and said: — 

“Write your name a little larger.” And when Mar- 
guerite had done this, “ Now write Monica’s name, and 
a little larger also,” the mother added. 

“But why, maman?” again the girl asked. The 
mother’s face, and the singular nature of the prepara- 
tions made, had begun to alarm her. Her anxiety had 
increased when she had been bidden to sign her name, 
first as usual, and then in larger letters, like those 
which she now so well remembered on the memoran- 
dum at the money-changer’s. The last command had 
brought this anxiety to its height. She sought, how- 
ever, to obey, but her hand trembled so, after the first 
two letters, that she dropped the pen, while the mother, 
at this silent, and so much the more unquestionable, 
confession, cried out in a tone of agony : — 

“Wretched girl! It was you, then! It is no use to 
deny it,” she continued. “I have been at the money- 
changer’s. I have seen the receipt for the money that 
you received. Where is that money, first? What have 


MONICA 


121 


you done with those two hundred and fifteen francs? 
Answer me, what have you done with them? To steal 
them was shameful, but to try to hide your theft by 
accusing some one else was infamous ! ” 

“No, maman/” protested Marguerite. “I did not 
do that. I have the money here. I will give it all 
back I didn’t want to steal. I have not stolen. I 
did it to get my revenge — for no other reason. Monica 
and Michel were together every day ; they used to meet 
in the rue Masseran. I knew it; I had seen them 
there. He used to write to her. He was going to 
marry her. Then, the other day, there were those 
papers in the drawer. They tempted me. I took five, 
that is true — but not for the money, maman, I swear 
to you, not for the money! I took the papers so that 
I could put them in her room, and have papa find them 
and turn her out of the house. And Michel would not 
marry her. That is what I did, nothing but that.” 

“I should rather you had stolen just for stealing,” 
groaned the mother. “Yes, indeed! You take a thing, 
you may repent, you may restore it. But that you, 
my daughter, you should be so vicious, so base! Ah! 
wretched, wretched girl ! ” And, in a fit of furious 
passion, the peasant woman seizing her child by both 
arms forced her down to her knees on the floor, and 
cried : “ Beg my pardon that you have made me do what 
you have! For you have made me bear false witness 
to your father. I have done it, I, Frangoise Franque- 


122 


MONICA 


tot, who never wronged a person out of a penny in my 
life. Beg my pardon, and do it quickly ! ” 

“ Pardon, pardon, maman ! ” cried the girl. Pardon ! 
You are hurting me ! Oh, let me go ; don’t hold me so 
hard! Listen! When you are jealous, you suffer so! 
You are almost crazy. It holds you; it turns you round; 
it drags you about. It devours you. You are not your- 
self any longer. I was mad. I will never do so any 
more, never, never ! ” 

“ But when you saw us, your father and me, looking 
for those papers, and we were so sorry, did that not 
touch your heart? We are not rich people, your father 
and I. We have not our thousands or our hundreds. 
We have nothing but our honour. We ourselves might 
have been suspected; we ought to have been. This had 
nothing to do with Monica, nor with your cousin; it 
concerned us — us whom that girl has the right to 
despise. She only sought a pretext to be ungrateful, 
and you gave it to her. It is she who has the upper 
hand, now! I am sure that she suspected the truth; 
that it was you who were the guilty one. That is why 
Michel would not speak to you. And she only wanted 
to be quits with us ! How could you let us take her five 
hundred francs, when you knew we had no right to it? 
But I have found a way to punish you. You shall 
restore it to her, yourself, with your own hands, her 
five hundred francs.” 

“No, maman,” Marguerite said, getting up from her 


MONICA 


123 


knees. “You will not ask me to do that; ” and with a 
terror-stricken face she implored: “No. No. I will 
not do it. I will never do that ! ” 

“You will do it/’ the mother said. “Your father and 
I can make you do it. And so, at least, she will not be 
able to say that we were your accomplices.” 

“You are going to speak to my father?” the girl 
begged, joining her hands in more terrified entreaty 
than before. “Ah! maman, I will return the money 
myself to Monica; I will beg her pardon. But do not 
tell papa ! Did you see when he thought it was Monica 
how angry he was? He would kill me! Maman, I 
implore you, do not speak to him! Do not speak to 
him ! ” She came close to her mother, and took hold 
of her dress ; she tried to embrace her and to keep her 
from leaving the room. This idea that her act was to 
be made known to her father completely overwhelmed 
her. The implacable mother thrust her away with a 
gesture that was as brutal as a blow, saying : — 

“You should have thought of that before. Your 
father shall know all, and know it immediately. He 
shall never be able to reproach me with having had 
such a thing as this on my conscience and keeping it 
from him. He is the man, and the house is his. I 
am his wife, and you are his daughter. I will not be 
undutiful toward him.” And joining the action to 
the word, she began to call, “Franquetot! Franque- 
tot ! ” Then, fearing that her daughter might escape. 


124 


MONICA 


she ran back to her, caught her by the wrist, and, 
holding her as in a vise, dragged her first out into the 
passageway and then, as her husband still did not 
answer, halfway down the stairs, and again called, 
“ Franquetot ! ” 

In this position the old cabinet-maker found the two 
— Marguerite struggling to get away and Frangoise 
almost crushing her in her powerful grasp. This scene 
of silent strife — with the workmen only two steps 
away — between this mother and daughter, announced 
some domestic event so serious and so unexpected that, 
as if by instinct, the father perceived the importance 
of its having no witnesses. He closed the door of the 
atelier in silence, his wife having now dragged her 
prisoner back to the upper floor ; and it was only when 
they were all in the kitchen, and he was quite certain 
they could not be overheard, that he separated the 
two combatants, taking Madame Franquetot with one 
hand and Marguerite with he other, and said — 

“What is all this? What have you done to your 
mother, Gote? Calm yourself, Frangoise.” Then, 
again speaking to his daughter, “Do you think I have 
not had trouble enough these last few days without 
your adding to it?” 


VI 


EXPLANATIONS 

There is nothing more alarming, in the tragic cir- 
cumstances of life, than silence in certain cases where 
one expected an explosion. One trembles in advance at 
the expected bolt, but one is much more alarmed at a 
composure, which can only conceal a more implacable, 
more irremediable determination. This terror at silence 
Marguerite Franquetot felt to the degree that she was 
obliged to sit down — so dissolved, as it were, was her 
whole being merely in enduring her father’s look while 
her mother related, with harsh, crude words that went 
straight to the point, the incidents of the last two hours : 
her conversation with Michel Tavernier and the affront 
offered to Marguerite; her own anger; her visit to the 
money-changer for the purpose of seeing Monica’s 
signature; the handwriting that she recognized to be 
Marguerite’s; and all that followed. Franquetot had 
listened to this recital without a word or gesture. For 
those who knew his habitual open-heartedness, this im- 
mobility, joined to the almost livid pallor of his face, 
revealed an interior agitation so intense and overmaster- 
ing that anything, even murder, might be its outcome. 

126 


126 


MONICA 


When his wife had ceased speaking he still remained 
silent for some minutes, which appeared interminable 
to the offender; then, addressing her, he spoke in a 
voice which startled both the women, so profound was 
its solemnity, but without that indignant anger that 
they were expecting. Even that would have been better 
than the cold and infinitely sad severity with which he 
asked, — 

“ Do you acknowledge the truth of all that your mother 
has told me?’’ 

“Yes, father,” she replied, “but — ” 

“Do not interrupt me,” he resumed, “merely reply 
to my questions. Do you understand that in conduct- 
ing yourself as you have done you have committed an 
abominable act? Yes, abominable! Toward this poor 
girl, first, who has neither father nor mother, and has 
been brought up with you as a sister, and you were 
willing, had there not been a noble heart to protect 
her, to see her turned out of doors, thrown into the 
street helpless, friendless, disgraced ; then, toward 
your mother and me, whom you made your accomplices 
in this frightful wrong; and why? Because we could 
not for a moment suspect you of such a thing. Toward 
yourself, lastly; for do you think you could have helped 
being frightfully unhappy with this burden upon your 
soul and the consciousness that Monica knew all? For 
her conduct proves that she knows what you have done; 
and Michel also. And you would have been obliged to 


MONICA 


127 


endure every hour, every minute of your life, the idea 
of their contempt! Is this, also, true? Do you feel that 
it is true? Answer me!” 

“It is true, father,” said Marguerite. 

“I shall inflict no punishment on you,” Eranquetot 
continued. “Your offence is too great. If you repent, 
I shall see it. I shall never speak of this to you again. 
You will know that I have forgiven you when I kiss 
you again. From this day till then, you will be to me 
as a stranger. It rests with you to deserve it if I ever 
again call you my daughter. This is all I have to say 
to you. Now go wash your eyes, that no one may see 
you have been crying, and come back to your work.” 

“Why did you not punish her, my man?” asked 
FranQoise Franquetot, when Marguerite had left the 
room. Neither of the women had ventured to interrupt 
the father while he was speaking. He had shown in 
the words which he had addressed to his daughter that 
remarkable dignity which he had at times. Men like 
himself, the half -artisan, half-artist, at certain moments 
naturally assume the manners, having already the feel- 
ings, of a very high social grade. And, again, they 
revert to the rudeness of their own class and occupa- 
tion. A few hours before, Franquetot had received and 
treated his nephew almost brutally, having yielded to 
the lower impulses of his temperament. He had now, 
in his conduct toward Marguerite, manifested the re- 
flnement of his nature, that which made him an aristo- 


128 


MONICA 


crat in his way, a poet as to his work, a lover of 
the Ideal, an enthusiast. The explanation which he 
gave of this conduct could not, certainly, be thoroughly 
comprehended by the loyal, but coarse-natured, creature 
whom the accident of destiny had imposed on him as a 
companion. And still she felt its deep humanity, for, 
as he spoke, she had to wipe away the tears this con- 
fession of her “man,” as she called him, wrung from 
her. For lack of the apron, a corner of which usually 
served her in cases of like need, she employed the 
gloves that she still had on her hands — another very 
significant proof that this series of astounding events 
had, so to speak, caused her to be no longer herself. 
And the black thread fingers left their marks, a 
comically pathetic detail, in long streaks upon her 
red face. 

“Why did I not punish her?” Franquetot replied. 
“Because, as I looked at her while you were talking 
to me, I saw her as a little child, here in this same 
room, where she used to be playing with Monica; and 
I felt, suddenly, that her having come to hate the other 
girl so much was not altogether her own fault. Long 
ago I saw the beginnings of this antipathy, and in you, 
also, my poor wife ; do not deny it. But you were very 
just toward her, and you have to-day proved this yet 
once more by clearing the innocent as soon as you knew 
her to be so. But still, neither did you love her. In 
the three days that she has been gone, this has been made 


MONICA 


129 


so clear to me! You were happy because she was no 
longer in your house, because you no longer heard her 
coming and going, no longer saw my affection for her. 
For it is I who am the real cause of this rancour that 
you, both of you, feel toward Monica. I was too happy 
in being with her, that is true 5 and I showed it too 
freely. I ought to have remembered that you have the 
right of precedence, my wife, and Gote, my child. I 
ought to have thought that you both would be jealous. 
But you know, in Monica and in Michel, it was for the 
beautiful carved things that I loved them. They under- 
stood them so well. The beautiful carved wood is some- 
thing I am insane about. Then, too, I have never shown 
you as I ought, what I really feel for you. This embit- 
tered you toward the other. And when, besides, came 
this jealousy as to Michel, the child was crazed; she 
did wrong, very wrong; but while she is to blame, I also 
am not innocent in this matter. This is why I could 
not punish her. To force her to beg pardon of Monica, 
as you wished, was so harsh! I am the father. It is I 
who am responsible. I shall ask pardon on her behalf.” 

You, mon ami, ask pardon! ” cried Franqoise; “you, 
a man such as you are, who have always lived for others 
— and pardon of Monica, who owes everything to you ! ” 
And with an effort, which for a moment gave to her 
rough-hewn features the exalted expression of voluntary 
martyrdom; “It is true, my man,” she continued, “that 
I do not love that girl. It is true that I hate her. This 


130 


MONICA 


is something I cannot help. She has made my child 
wicked. She has taken her cousin from her. And 
besides that, it is true that I am jealous. It is so hard 
for me, mon ami, to be so stupid, and not always under- 
stand when you are talking. She has had time and edu- 
cation and brains. She has known you all her life. It 
was too late for me when I began to know you. I could 
scarcely read and write. All I knew how to do was to 
be your servant. Well now, I will go and ask her pardon, 
since somebody must do it. But not you — not you ! 

‘‘Yes, I,” repeated Franquetot. “You forget it was 
I who sent her away. It is I who must bring her back.” 

“You are going to bring her back?” said the wife. 

“And you are going to receive her,” he insisted. 
“We must do this, to make amends for what Marguerite 
did. We must do it. And I promise you this, you will 
never again be jealous. Before this I knew that I loved 
you, and I knew your worth. But I did not know all.” 

He held out his arms, and the two clasped each other 
in a long embrace. They had exchanged words too sin- 
cere, they had gone too deeply into each other’s souls, 
for FranQoise, after the first impulse of revolt had 
passed, to try to persuade her husband to abandon a 
resolution which, after all, was in conformity with the 
idea which her mind, imbued with the strong customs 
of her native mountains, held, as to the role of a head 
of the family. If there be, as her sturdy Catholic faith 
believes, a place of purifying fire after death, the min- 


MONICA 


131 


utes which followed that conversation will assuredly be 
credited to her on the purgatorial account. 

“Bring me my hat and coat,” Franquetot had said. 
“I must go to her at once.” Franqoise brought them, 
and aided her husband in putting on the coat, and went 
herself, seeing that the weather seemed doubtful, to 
look for the one umbrella possessed by the family. 
Finally, she watched him go downstairs, and when he 
had shut the door after him she sat down again and 
began crying, with big tears which fell, fell, rolled down 
her face, spotted the waist of her Sunday gown, of which 
she no longer thought, and in the simplicity of her grief 
she sobbed: — 

“He was right. We shall be quits after this. All 
the same, if we had never taken that child, all this would 
never have happened. This is what comes of being too 
tender-hearted. One gets punished for it.” 

If Franquetot had heard this exclamation, in which 
was summed up that strict philosophy of mine and 
thine so natural to the working-class, who earn their 
bread by daily labour, perhaps he would have felt 
even more that which he already felt so keenly at 
this moment, namely, the profound difference existing 
between himself and his own family, and the resem- 
blance, on the contrary, — too wide-reaching, too inti- 
mate, — between his own heart and that of this adopted 
child whom he now went to seek. He had been very 
sincere just now in his self-reproach for his partiality 


132 


MONICA 


toward Monica, as he had been very lucid in his view of 
the character of Marguerite and of the ravages produced 
in it by jealousy of the other girl. But to reproach 
one’s self for an inclination, a feeling, a preference, 
is not to cease feeling it; and as he walked on toward 
the avenue du Maine and the studio of Michel, which 
was the only place where he could obtain Monica’s ad- 
dress, the old artist fell once more, in spite of himself, 
into the fault that he had confessed to his wife. He 
almost forgot both the wife and the daughter in his 
delight at regaining the child of his soul and having 
no longer cause to suspect her of evil. When he had 
inquired of the porter of the kind of ciU in which his 
nephew was lodged whether Monsieur Tavernier were 
in, and had received an affirmative response, he was 
obliged to wait for a few minutes, so violent was the 
beating of his heart. 

The studio, which had the number “7” over the 
door, was one of the cells in a hive composed of a 
number of similar apartments, all on the ground 
floor, with little bedrooms overhead belonging with 
them. There were eighteen, nine on each side, arranged 
along a central paved walk, which ended at the long 
shed of a truckage office. The speculator who, while 
waiting for a rise in the value of this ground, had run 
up by contract these light structures, whose walls were 
entirely of hollow bricks, rented them so cheaply that 
the eighteen studios were almost always occupied. 


MONICA 


133 


This little barrack, divided into equal compartments, 
was a symbol of the enregimenting that necessarily goes 
on in a community tending more and more to equality 
and the dead level, even among existences the least 
susceptible of classification. Independence and Bohe- 
mianism resumed their rights behind the high windows, 
through which visitors to this caravansary of artists 
could see hanging on the walls, mouldings in plaster 
and weapons, canvases half painted and musical instru- 
ments, all the incoherent and picturesque decoration of 
abodes of this kind. 

It is very probable that if one of the all-powerful 
genii of the Arabian tales had thrown open, all at once, 
the eighteen doors, the views presented by these abodes 
of free artists in their earliest stages, would not all 
have had the character, pathetic and truly young, ” — 
in the noblest sense of that much-profaned, beautiful 
word, — that the atelier of Michel Tavernier presented 
to the eyes of his uncle when the latter had at last de- 
cided to knock, and the sculptor had called out simply, 

Come in ! ” 

Monica sat there, in a chair placed on the broad ped- 
estal used for models, with head bare, her beautiful fair 
hair gathered as usual in a tawny mass, whence escaped 
some unruly curls, — perfectly modest and simple, in 
her working-dress, and an apron with shoulder-straps; 
and the active child was busy with a bit of sewing. 

To appease the bitter feelings which Michel had 


134 


MONICA 


brought back from his visit in the rue Oudinot, she 
herself had offered now to pose for the bust which he 
had long dreamed of making. Heretofore, she had 
always said to him, “After we are married.” But see- 
ing him in such a state of irritation, she had proposed 
to him to make a beginning on this work in the few 
days that would be left to her free before she should 
go to her new patron. She had thought that these sit- 
tings would dispel the young man’s anger; and for 
herself, she would take the opportunity to begin hem- 
ming and marking her humble trousseau for their ap- 
proaching marriage. Responding to Michel’s entire 
confidence in her by a confidence no less generous, she 
had no scruple at these long hours alone with the young 
man in his studio, nor did she fear that her presence 
there would be misjudged. And besides, with tacit 
accord, the key had been left in the door. At sight 
of his uncle, the sculptor’s fingers, busy in roughing 
out the huge lump of clay, stopped in their work, and 
Monica grew as white as the towel she was hemming. 
Rranquetot was no less agitated than they. It was he, 
however, who first broke the silence. He came for- 
ward with a firm step, and uniting them in an appella- 
tion which, in itself, was a disavowal of all the unjust 
severity he had shown : — 

“My children,” he said, “I have come to ask your 
pardon — pardon from both of you. From you, Monica, 
for my conduct toward you day before yesterday; from 


MONICA 


135 


you, Michel, for all that I said this morning. I have 
been deceived, shamefully deceived. Now I know all. 
That unhappy girl has confessed everything.” 

“Ah! parrain, dear parrain!” cried Monica, spring- 
ing from her chair, and, clasped in Franquetot’s arms, 
she continued: “Do not go on, do not say another word! 
Keep silent! We have no wish to know anything 
more, only that you believe in me again! That is all 
we want, is it not, Michel? And to have you consent 
to our marriage. The rest is no matter, you see; it is 
all over and ended. That was all that mattered. I was 
sure the truth would be known some day ; I did not 
think it would be so soon. And you wanted to have us 
know it immediately! Thanks! thanks! You are so 
kind! I have been very sad these last days. But it is 
all repaid now ! All. With you two like this, no one 
in the world can do me any harm now.” 

As she spoke, and while thus clinging to her adoptive 
father, the lovely girl had drawn her fianc^ toward 
her that she might unite the hands of the two men, 
and with tears of joy in her eyes she went on : “ This 
is my betrothal day, do you see? You must both make 
me a present! Will you give me what I ask for, both 
of you? Michel, is it a promise?” 

“Yes,” he said. 

“ And you, parrain f ” 

Franquetot said yes; and Monica resumed: “Well 
then, what I ask of you both is that neither of you will 


136 


MONICA 


be displeased with any person on my account. With 
any person, do you understand me, Michel? You have 
promised. You did not keep your promise perfectly, 
before. You have one fault to be forgiven for, now.” 

The smile on her pathetic lips was so sweet, in her 
eyes, wet with emotion, there was such an engaging 
entreaty not to spoil for her this moment of supreme 
felicity, her dainty head was bent on her slender neck 
with so much coquettish grace, the features of her deli- 
cate face were so lighted up with a lovely, imploring 
earnestness, that the lover of this adorable girl felt all 
his rancour against those who had persecuted her — one 
perfidiously, the other ignorantly — melt away, and he 
replied, — 

will obey you, Monica. All is forgotten.” 

And you, parrain ? ” 

‘‘It is not mine to forget,” said Franquetot. “It is 
yours.” 

“No, no. It is yours also,” she rejoined, shaking her 
pretty head. Never was her resemblance to the eigh- 
teenth-century portraits, which had so often struck the 
old Mniste, more striking than at this moment. What 
blood was it that fiowed in the veins of this foundling? 
He had often and often asked himself this; he had 
thought that it must be noble blood; and his idolatry 
for her had been augmented by all his worship for the 
shades of the grandes dames, in whose service the Oebens 
and Eieseners had wrought their marvels. At this 


MONICA 


137 


moment, when she displayed, as by the inborn aris- 
tocracy of her lovely nature, so much instinctive mag- 
nanimity, a generosity so spontaneous, she was, in 
truth, even in her simple dress, a little patrician stand- 
ing between her two servants; and the old workman 
answered her at last, summing up all his impressions 
in one word, which, in the mouth of this worshipper 
of Louis Seize and Marie Antoinette, was the most 
sovereign of compliments: — 

“You shall be obeyed, Madame la Eeine. Besides,” 
he continued, “you shall see for yourself; for I am 
here to take you home with me. I told them in the 
shop that you had gone out of town for a few days to 
do some work, and if you return now your absence will 
scarcely have been noticed.” 

At these words of Franquetot, the young girl had 
drawn away from him. The smile in her eyes and on 
her lips had faded. She walked across the room and 
back two or three times, as if the reply that she was 
going to make to this good man, whom she loved so 
much, would cost her dear. At last, stopping before 
him and gravely, tenderly, timidly, also, like one about 
to touch an open wound, yet feeling that his duty 
compels him to touch it, she said: — 

“ No, parrain ; I shall not go home with you. I will 
go to-morrow or the day after — you must let me choose 
the day — to visit you with Michel. But I shall never 
live there any more. I have no unkind feeling toward 


138 


MONICA 


any one, believe me. I love you, ah! as I should love 
an own father; and I am very grateful to Madame 
Franquetot. I have forgiven Marguerite. But do you 
not see it yourself? It is not my place to be there. 
Just as soon as I began to cause them unhappiness, it 
was my duty to go away. It is your wife, and it is your 
daughter. I respect them. They are at home in their 
own house and yours, and I, — though you treat me as 
your child, — lam not one of your family. You know, 
just as I do, that my presence there was painful to them 
before. Now it could be only a punishment. Do not 
ask me to inflict this; and do not inflict it yourself. 
You would like, I think, if I understand you rightly, 
to make me victorious, to rehabilitate me. But why 
should you? The person who will again be seen in the 
rue Oudinot must not be Monica, the foundling, but 
Monica, your nephew’s fiancee, Monica, your niece. If 
you knew how I desire to have a true place of my own 
in the world, a true, acknowledged place! This is not 
pride. It is not a question of pride with me, but I 
have suffered too much from not being as others are. I 
cannot bear this again, not even for a short time, not 
even in your house.” 

“Perhaps you are right,” Franquetot said, after hav- 
ing, in his turn, remained silent for a few minutes ; and, 
with a sigh that pierced the girl’s heart: “Good-by, 
Monica,” he said; “good-by, Michel. If I could have 
had you near me always, I could have been happy in 


MONICA 


139 


growing old. Perhaps I might not have died without 
doing what I have here in my brain ; and he smote his 
forehead with the gesture that legend attributes so often 
to the great artist who fails of success. “ What am I 
talking about? I will be happy, my children, since 
you are, and since I have had some share in making you 
so. You say you will come to-morrow, Monica, or the 
day after? Try to come to-morrow; and, you know, 
you must not buy any furniture for your lodgings. I 
shall give it to you. I shall carve it for you with my 
own hands. This shall be your dowry.” 

Now, you can understand why the door between the 
atelier of the furniture and that of the tapestry was 
always open when, last year, you went to see this excel- 
lent Franquetot, and why, now, it is always closed, 
since Monica is gone. You know now why the old man 
has grown so gray in these past months and the cause 
of his taciturn moods. Notwithstanding what he said, 
he is not happy. To think of his adopted daughter's 
happiness is not enough. He would like to have her 
there, as formerly, and Michel, his disciple, there, also. 
And yet art, that supreme consoler for the failures of 
all our dreams, has its pacifying effect upon the old 
sculptor, and he has, even in his melancholy, some 
very sweet hours. These are when he works, alone 
and secretly, when the atelier is vacant, at a chaise- 
longue in three parts, of his own designing, which he 


140 


MONICA 


intends for Monica. He forgets, as he uses his tools 
with all the delicacy of which he is capable, his 
daughter, toward whom in the depths of his heart he 
still has a feeling of bitterness, and his wife, whose 
coarse nature makes him suffer more than he will con- 
fess to himself, and his disappointment as to his nephew, 
and the other wrongs that fate has done him : the death 
of the persecuted Riesener, the suppressions of the 
guilds, the destruction of the Boulle furniture, in 1720, 
— in fact, all his griefs, real and imaginary. He re- 
tains them, however, in the depths of his heart, both 
the ancient and the new ; the latter are the more cruel, 
for they have stamped themselves upon his face, once 
so gay, in signs that his workmen cannot fail to observe. 
They talk of this often, when the patron is not present j 
and, the other day, when one of the most faithful cus- 
tomers of the place — he, in fact, from whom the author 
of this story has its details — was about to enter, he 
overheard the following dialogue. It is given here, in 
all its simplicity, because it contains in a rather pictu- 
resque form, though savouring of the shop, the philoso- 
phy, not of this narrative only, but of many others : 

“At least la Monica ought to come here oftener,” said 
the ill-disposed Espitalier. “ The patron would be more 
cheerful. I say, as I always have said, she will not die 
of having too much heart.” 

“But you must recollect there’s a baby,” Avron re- 
plied. “He is not six weeks old yet.” 


MONICA 


141 


‘‘I don^t agree with Espitalier, for my part,” said 
Chassaing. ‘^It is not la Monica who is bad-hearted, 
but Michel. He thinks himself quite above all of us, 
Eranquetot included. He does not like to have his wife 
come here too much.” 

‘‘We shall never know, now, what happened between 
la Monica and la Gote,” resumed Espitalier. “And the 
mother, too! I can never get it out of my head that 
that fracas about the bonds that disappeared had some- 
thing to do with that story ! ” 

“ And to think you have been with us twenty years, 
and it has taught you nothing!” interrupted Jolibois, 
the Admiral, the dean of the workshop. “What kind 
of wood do you call this?” he continued, showing to 
Espitalier, who worked at the same bench, the leg of 
an arm-chair which he was occupied in repairing. 
“Have you any idea what it is? Tell us.” 

“ It is walnut. What nonsense ! ” said Espitalier. 

“And this?” Jolibois asked, indicating another piece. 

“That’s whitewood. You old rascal!” 

“Well then,” insisted the other, “have you ever seen 
anybody make a piece of furniture partly of this hand- 
some black walnut, so well-veined and solid, and partly 
of this whitewood, which is not worth a quid? No, 
you never did? But that is what Eranquetot tried to 
do. He thought he could make a family with a Monica 
and a Gote. La Monica is the walnut, a fine wood, 
pretty, a wood for art and display; the other one is the 


142 


MONICA 


whitewood. Do you see now why his plan did not suc- 
ceed? We each of us have some kind of wood that we 
are like. You think not? Your wood, Espitalier, is 
the pitch-pine, a wood that strains and warps; Avron, 
Chassaing, and I, we are ash or cherry, something 
meagre, hard, not very handsome, but good to wear all 
the same. Eranquetot, he is heart of oak. You may 
laugh, but think it over, and you will see that I am 
right. And then,” he added, shaking his head, — the 
old workman half joking, half misanthropic, — ‘‘ what- 
ever wood we are, we are cut and sawn and planed and, 
in the end of everything, eaten by worms, like this arm- 
chair. There is this difference, however, that with care 
a piece of furniture can be set up again, no matter how 
bad it is ; while a man too much broken — you may set 
him on his feet, but it^s no use; he can’t stand. And 
sometimes I am afraid Eranquetot has been too much 
broken. It’s nobody’s fault. It was Life that did it, 
the old bungler!” 


January-February, 1901. 


II 

ATTITUDES 


















ATTITUDES 


I 

When Madame Izelin liad glanced at the card which 
the concierge of the hotel handed her, together with her 
letters, and had read thereon the name of Lucien Sal- 
van, her usually thoughtful and reserved face, of a 
woman of forty-five, expressed a surprise almost violent 
enough to be called a shock; and she at once slipped 
the card into the guide-book that she held in her hand, 
fearing lest her daughter Jeanne, who had lingered to 
select some flowers outside the door, might question 
her. But even when the latter appeared, bringing a 
handful of fresh primroses, those fresh Neapolitan 
primroses with which the sellers of bouquets besiege 
one^s carriage-door in Naples, — and beautifully did 
they harmonize with her blond grace, — the mother 
had not yet entirely recovered her composure, and the 
girl asked: — 

‘‘But what is the matter, mamma? Have you had 
bad news?” 


146 


146 


ATTITUDES 


“ I have not even looked at my letters, ” Madame Ize- 
lin said, forcing a smile, while Jeanne resumed, with 
solicitude in her voice and an anxiety in her blue eyes 
which seemed to reveal the most exalted affection: — 

“ If you’re not well, let us get back to Paris as soon 
as possible, and give up Kome and Florence. Do not 
think of me. Think of yourself. Your health is my 
very life to me. I love art passionately, but I love you 
more than I do Michelangelo or Kaphael.” 

‘‘I am perfectly well,” the mother replied, with a 
kind of vexation, as if the daughter’s tone in the in- 
quiry about her health — a tone so affectionate it seemed 
— had displeased her. “ Tiens ! here is a letter from 
your cousin Julie,” she continued, after having looked 
at the different addresses. And while Jeanne took the 
envelope and tore it open with a joyous curiosity now 
upon her expressive face, the mother continued to ex- 
amine her closely with a singular look, and held tight 
in her hand the book containing the visiting card which 
had so deeply agitated her. 

They had entered the lift, which was now slowly 
ascending toward the fourth floor, where they had 
their rooms. ‘The young girl kept on reading her let- 
ter, interrupting it by commentaries addressed to her 
companion : — 

“They have had a grand ball at the Le Prieux’, 
mamma; Julie writes that it was very amusing. There 
is talk of Edgar d Faucherot’s marriage to Jacqueline 


ATTITUDES 


147 


Lounet. They are going to wear boleros very short this 
season, it seems. What luck for me — with my figure ! ” 

‘‘No,” the mother said, five minutes later, when, alone 
in her room, she was again free to give herself up to 
the thoughts that the sight of the name engraved upon 
the card had awakened in her, “ it is not possible that 
she has anything to do with this young man’s coming 
here. All her letters pass through my hands. Besides, 
does she care for him? Does she care for anything but 
herself, and to produce an effect? Just now she had 
the air of being concerned about my health. If any one 
had seen her, in the hall, asking me, with those eyes, 
with that voice, ‘Is anything the matter with you, 
mamma? ’ he would have believed that she was anxious, 
that she loved me. ‘Do not think of me!’ she said, 
speaking of Borne and Florence j and she spoke of 
Michelangelo and Eaphael! She, who looks at nothing 
and feels nothing ! ” 

Then, continuing her inward monologue: “Is it her 
fault? And have I the right to be vexed with her 
when I know so well that she inherits this frightful 
fault, this lack of truth, this eternal playing a part? 
And am I just? It is her way of feeling. Alas! I 
have seen too often, with her father, what it all leads 
to, — this taste for attitude and effect, — to what ego- 
ism, to what falsehood! I did not see it when I mar- 
ried him, any more than this unlucky young man sees 
the character of Jeanne! How he loves her — that he 


148 


ATTITUDES 


could not endure our departure ! If he knew that she 
has not spoken of him once, that she has not given him 
a moment’s thought! It must be of his own accord that 
he came, that he discovered where we were! How he 
loves her ! The poor lad ! ” 

She had taken out the card from the guide-book, as 
she sat reflecting thus, and spelled out with her eyes 
the name of the young man on whose account she had 
hurriedly, flve weeks before, carried her daughter off 
from Paris, first to Sicily and then to Naples, impelled 
by impressions and scruples which made part of the 
deep history of her life. What this life had been, and 
through how many sad hours it had passed, the prema- 
ture gray of her hair, the prematurely wrinkled eyelids 
plainly told. She must have been pretty, very differ- 
ently from her daughter, with something modest, timid, 
retiring, in her appearance. Her features, bearing the 
impress of age, remained extremely delicate. She still 
had beautiful teeth, beautiful eyes that were very soft, 
which sometimes, — too rarely, — when she smiled 
frankly, lighted up with a youthful, and almost child- 
ish, splendour. The half-mourning, which she had not 
laid aside, after two years of widowhood, made her 
colouring look like ivory. Her figure remained slender 
and lithe; and, though she had not a drop of noble 
blood in her veins, — her father, whose very plebeian 
name was Dupuis, had made his fortune as a whole- 
sale dealer in wood at Bercy, — her feet and hands 


ATTITUDES 


149 


would have caused envy to more than one authentic 
duchess. With this she also had, as it were diffused 
over all her person, that indefinable melancholy of 
women who have never been loved. 

If her daughter, at that moment occupied in the next 
room in arranging her flowers in her vases, while going 
over in a half -voice a Neapolitan song, destined to be 
endlessly repeated, with piano accompaniment, in Paris, 
had opened the door a crack, and studied, in the verity 
of her expression, this mother whom she affected to 
love so much, possibly a true emotion might for once 
have seized her, on seeing how much this face, habitu- 
ally so fatigued, had grown sadder still while she turned 
over and over in her slender fingers the supple oblong 
of pasteboard. 

The splendid landscape visible through the window 
— that Bay of Naples with its soft curves, the purity of 
its sky and water, the graceful sweep of its volcano, its 
bright-coloured cities along its luminous shore, its sails 
so white upon its sea so blue — gave to this face of an 
anxious woman a setting which still further increased 
its pathetic expression. At last, and as if awaking 
from a very sad dream, the widow passed her hand over 
her eyes; she sighed heavily, and looked at the clock. 
It was now quarter to twelve. Breakfast would be 
served at half-past twelve. She unlocked a drawer and 
took out her writing-case, wherein lay a letter already 
partly written, very long, and evidently taken up from 


150 


ATTITUDES 


time to time; she re-read it, now and then shaking her 
head, as with a feeling of the uselessness of what she 
had written; and, after assuring herself that her 
daughter, now also herself seated at a table in the ad- 
jacent room and about to write up the journal of her 
so-called “impressions of travel,” would probably not 
interrupt her, she returned to go on with this letter, 
written to the only one of her friends to whom she 
gave her complete confidence. These pages will ex- 
plain, better than any commentary, both the nature of 
the relations between this woman and this girl, and the 
singular moral tragedy of her own life in which the 
presence of Lucien Sal van at Naples and his call at 
the hotel made a novel and decisive episode. 

Naples, March 17, 1897. 

Your reproaches, my dear friend, on the subject of 
my long silence touch me. To have the heart’s second 
sight, as you have it toward me, your friendship for 
me must be very strong — strong even to the extent of 
being a little unjust. But it is a sweet injustice. One 
has need sometimes to feel one’s self loved too much, 
loved with a sensitiveness unknown to lukewarm affec- 
tions. You know whether I have been over-indulged in 
this regard. Know also, know always, that I appre- 
ciate your sympathy as it deserves. Fortunate as you 
are in your husband, your children, your grandchil- 
dren, that you should have been interested, as you have 
been, in a solitary woman, who was but an acquaintance. 


ATTITUDES 


151 


is the proof of a tender-heartedness for which it would 
be inhuman in me to be ungrateful. 

I am not so, be assured; and if I left Paris without 
seeing you, without talking over with you the plan 
of this journey about which you express anxiety, it was 
because certain griefs are shy in their nature, even 
toward — especially toward — friends whose esteem 
one would carefully avoid alienating from other per- 
sons. You understand from these few words that my 
poor Jeanne is concerned in this resolution which I 
suddenly formed of leaving home for an absence of 
some weeks, perhaps months. But do not hastily sup- 
pose that the child has done anything deserving of 
blame. There are moments when I ask myself if it is 
not I who am in fault, and whether I have truly ful- 
filled toward her, in this affair, a mother’s duty. But 
could I better respond to your tender solicitude, dear 
friend, than by making you yourself the judge of the 
troubles through which I have passed, of the reflections 
resulting from them, and of the method by which I have 
escaped from a difficulty which, whatever its cause may 
have been, is now so probably a thing of the past that 
what I write you is merely retrospective history. Still, 
I intend to relate it to you, though at the risk of repeat- 
ing things in regard to which I have often talked with 
you before. Do not expect anything extraordinary. Who 
is it that says, Dramas of the heart have no events ” ? 

We have so often spoken of my daughter that I do 


152 


ATTITUDES 


not need to tell you that my difficulty again arises from 
the peculiarity of my relations with her. Permit me to 
recall them to you, so that the whole may be clear and 
definite in your mind. To do this will be a solace, 
while it also will cause me pain. 

You knew her father, and you know what the martyr- 
dom of my life with him was. God forbid that I should 
ever confuse a child, all inexperience, all simplicity, 
with a man so deeply, so thoroughly corrupt. That 
Monsieur Izelin married me solely for my fortune ; that 
he never had in his heart the shadow of a shade of 
affection for me, while I, on my part, gave myself to 
him with a passion of which this day’s lament — after 
so many years, after death — is still a proof; that he 
betrayed me, exploited, humiliated, crushed me — I 
should be guilty indeed if I felt ill-will toward his 
daughter on this account, and threw upon her the re- 
sponsibility for a resemblance which is no fault of hers ! 
That she has his eyes, his hair, his colouring, his ges- 
tures, his voice — that I find again in her, under a femi- 
nine form, that grace of trait and manner by which I 
was so foolishly caught — would be only a reason for 
loving her better — in memory of my past illusions! 
But the resemblance, as I have often said to you, goes 
much farther. I have also explained to you how the 
misery of my married life was less in the actions which 
made me their victim than in the states of feeling that 
they manifested. Monsieur Izelin might have been 


ATTITUDES 


153 


even more faithless and more brutal than he was, I 
should have been less unhappy had he not kept, through 
all his faults, that faculty of simulation which deceived 
so many people, as it had deceived me when I was very 
young; which, at first, deceived even yourself, the 
acutest mind, the best endowed with discernment that 
I know. You remember, too, how this man, so selfish 
and hard, always had the right words to say, the right 
attitude to assume, in relation to whatever came up; 
how he excelled in the impersonation of scrupulous- 
ness! If a story of villany were related in his pres- 
ence, how he grew indignant; or some noble act, how 
he admired it ! If the talk was of a book, a picture, a 
play, how fine and pure his taste appeared! If a char- 
acter were discussed, how he was indulgent or severe, 
with an equity which gave those who heard him the 
idea of a conscience so lofty, so wise ! This simulation 
was of all my miseries the worst. It was from a horror 
of this false show that I formed that habit of reserve 
with which you have sometimes reproached me, that 
difficulty in giving expression to my own feelings, that 
aversion from every manifested emotion, which you 
have at times regarded as coldness. I had suffered too 
much from that duality of my husband not to mistrust, 
everywhere and always, that which once you called — 
using a word that I have not forgotten — attitudes of 
the soul. One can assume them so often, so gracefully, 
so appropriately, and feel so little! 


154 


ATTITUDES 


It was only late in his life that you met Monsieur 
Izelin, at a time when this gift of conceiving and ex- 
pressing refined feelings, without experiencing them at 
all, had become a frightful, a criminal hypocrisy, serv- 
ing to hide under a noble exterior a frightful degrada- 
tion of character. It had not always been so. Even 
in the earliest days of our married life, while he was 
for me an absolutely blameless husband, I began to 
notice this complete, radical divorce in him between 
feeling and expression, this instinct for pose, which 
made him involuntarily, without effort, by a sort of 
irresistible histrionic inclination, assume a certain char- 
acter for the purpose of producing a desired effect. 
Before being an actor with an end to gain, he was an 
actor for the mere pleasure of it. And why? In de- 
scribing to you, yet again, this character, of which I 
made, to my cost, so prolonged a study, I am still in- 
capable of answering this question. Is there, in some 
natures, an inner aridness which incapacitates them for 
any deep, simple, genuine emotion, and with it an 
imaginative power which makes them believe that they 
feel, and so they trick themselves first, and, later, 
others? And then, do these insincere, complicated 
natures let themselves be carried away by the desire 
to please, or by vanity, or by self-interest, to in- 
crease this original fault? They were factitious; they 
become false. They are nothing but perfidy and cal- 
culation; but they began by being almost spontaneous 


ATTITUDES 


155 


in their insincerity. This passage from artifice to false- 
hood is my husband’s whole moral history. And all 
my history — mine with my daughter — is, since I first 
observed in her, as a child, touches of character so 
like her father’s, a terror lest the resemblance become 
complete. For any other mother than I, this facility 
of Jeanne’s in transforming herself at the will of the 
persons she desires to please, this knowing what words 
to use, what manner to assume, while yet she feels 
nothing at all of what she expresses, this gift of atti- 
tudesj which contrasts so much, when one knows her 
well, with her interior indifference; for any other per- 
son than myself these would be only a young girl’s 
queer ways, sure to pass off as she grew older. 

I have too carefully watched these tendencies not to 
be aware that they do but grow with her; and her 
father’s destiny is too constantly present to my mind 
for me to accept carelessly what I believe, what I 
know, to be an actual malformation of soul. I have 
so striven against this, since first I perceived it in her, 
and always in vain! I have so endeavoured to break 
up this spontaneous lying, to hinder the child’s play- 
ing to herself the part of emotions that she does not 
feel ! I have so laboured to render her simple and sin- 
cere; and I have so felt that there was, in the inmost 
structure of her being, an innate element, a something 
primitive and indestructible, that she is born an actress 
as you and I are born sincere, perhaps because, — I, 


156 


ATTITUDES 


her mother, shudder to write it, — perhaps because she 
has no heart, and never will have one. 

I have gone on talking to you thus, at such length, 
as if I had not confessed these miseries to you many 
a time before. Pardon me, and see in this a sign that 
I am greatly agitated at this moment and the depths of 
my memory are stirred. And, then, to repeat to you 
all these things is to plead for myself, in advance, in 
the affair I am about to relate to you, and of which 
this journey into Italy is the episode. I have said “ the 
affair,” but the word will seem to you too serious 
when you discover to what it is applied. Nor will you 
any better understand, at first, why I did not tell you 
of my solicitude when it first began, and why I do tell 
you of it now. The truth is, I hesitated long before 
yielding to it myself; and, then, I had seen you but 
little this winter since you were in mourning, and I am 
laying mine aside while J eanne is entering society this 
year. You will remember that I always dreaded this 
period in her life? With the character that I believe 
I see in her, everything for her, more than for any 
other girl, depends upon her marriage ; and a marriage 
depends so often on this first year in society — the im- 
pression a young girl produces, and the young men whom 
she meets. 

Will you be surprised when I tell you that she has 
had much success and also has shown much tact and 
manner? — too much for my taste. She, toward whom 


ATTITUDES 


157 


her father was so harsh, and who mourned so little for 
him, — you remember how I suffered from that, in spite 
of everything? — she has carried into all her gayeties 
that reserved air of a daughter who, left alone with a 
widowed mother, lives upon a footing of concealed sad- 
ness. You know how I feared she might imitate her 
cousins, who are good girls, but with that detestable 
tone of the flighty young woman of the present day. 
On the contrary, Jeanne has made it her affair not to 
be like them. She, who since she began to think at 
all, has never taken an interest in anything but the 
bits of Parisian life that by chance came within her 
reach; she has found out, through this genius for simu- 
lation that is in her, that the secret of success is to ap- 
pear as serious, as old-fashioned, as the others are lively 
and ‘‘new-century,” to use their own expression. You 
will say that I am hard to please, and that causes are of 
no consequence, provided the result is good. Granted 
that a young girl has this dignity from vanity — the 
principal thing is, that she have it. 

And, indeed, I should have reasoned thus myself if 
this little scheme of Jeanne’s had not resulted in awak- 
ening the most passionate interest in the young man 
whom I would least wish to see her marry, from a 
reason which is precisely the subject of my scruples, 
and of which you alone, my dear friend and devoted 
confidant, will understand the origin and the nature. 

This young man, whom you do not know, but whose 


158 


ATTITUDES 


name you have certainly heard, on account of his 
father, is M. Lucien Salvan. He is the son of Dr. 
Sal van, the specialist in nervous diseases. This means, 
as you see, of course, that he will one day be rich, and 
also that his family belong to that position in life in 
which it is my ardent wish that Jeanne should remain. 
I have too fully experienced, in her father’s case, how 
wise is the old custom of marrying in one’s own station, 
with absolute equality as to fortune and birth. If 
Monsieur Izelin had not been the son of a woman of 
noble family, who had felt herself deprived of her social 
position by her marriage with a plebeian, he might not 
have had that lack of balance which was increased by 
his marriage with me — he, the half-artist, very close 
to the aristocracy, I, the daughter of a man in trade, 
very close to the people. As regards social conditions, 
therefore. Monsieur Salvan would correspond perfectly 
to all that I desire. With this, without being notice- 
ably handsome, he is a man of very good presence. He 
has a pleasant face and agreeable manners. He has 
the reputation of being a worker, and has just passed 
his legal examinations brilliantly. His father and his 
mother — he resembles the latter especially, whom you 
would like — leave him free as to his career, and there 
can be no doubt that he will succeed in whatever one 
he may choose. This is the portrait of an ideal son- 
in-law, is it not? And because it is so, I ask myself 
if, in ardently desiring that this marriage shall not 


ATTITUDES 


159 


take place, I have not been seriously unfaithful toward 
my daughter. Do not think I have lost my reason; 
have patience to read to the end. 

I had not much difficulty, as you will easily suppose, 
in discovering that this young man was interested in 
Jeanne. The lover’s tricks are always the same. No 
sooner had this one been presented to us than he began, 
as being the correct thing, to be as devoted to me as 
he was to her. This is classic. It is equally so that 
I strove to profit by his assiduities to study his charac- 
ter. The trait which struck me at once, no doubt 
because I recognized in it a close and singular resem- 
blance to myself, was this difficulty of expression, this 
kind of shyness which feeling only increased, this re- 
serve under the eye of others, this sensitiveness, all 
the more intimidated the more it is intense, manifesting 
itself so much the less the more it is touched. 

I have said to you that Lucien Salvan resembles his 
mother. He has her refined and distinguished manner, 
with a firmness of will that reminds one of his father. 
But the mother predominates, and one divines by all 
sorts of little tokens that this son of a woman so dis- 
tinguished feels, at every moment, in the contact of 
life, impressions that most men never suspect — that a 
brutality of thought or of words hurts him as it hurts 
us, you and me, that he is the victim of profound sym- 
pathies or antipathies on the most casual encounters. 
In short, he is one of those beings for whom one can- 


160 


ATTITUDES 


not help having, in advance, a certain pity, so much 
does one feel them exposed to suffer, if they are unfor- 
tunate. Do not imagine from this sketch one of those 
heroes of romance, of melancholy and effeminate aspect, 
who, at a tea-table or in a ball-room, assume the aspect 
of the misunderstood. The great charm of this young 
fellow is that he is absolutely, radically unaffected. He 
has no idea how different he is from the other young 
men of his age. He has lived at home, up to this time, 
without suspecting that he was an exception. It is not 
the first time that I have remarked this, that sensibili- 
ties truly deep are not those which revolt against their 
surroundings; they are those which accept their envi- 
ronment, which submit to the monotony of habits, and 
take pleasure in discipline and patience. Lucien was 
the most regular of schoolboys, the most exemplary of 
students, and his is the most passionate heart I have 
ever met, the most likely, if once it be given, to remain 
faithful forever, and if his choice is not what it ought to 
be, to suffer from this the very agony of death. 

How, when, as a result of what, did I find myself 
recalling, in the presence of the dawning affection of 
this charming fellow for Jeanne, the dawning of my 
own affection for him who was the torturer of my 
youth, the destroyer of all the hopes of my life? It 
was due to the fact that to the astonishing resemblance, 
which had so often caused me anxiety, between my 
daughter's character and that of her father, corresponds 


ATTITUDES 


161 


a resemblance, not less marvellous, between the char- 
acter of this young man and that which was my own 
character in that blind period of my youth. 

And there has grown within me a vision, if this 
marriage should ever take place, of an identity in our 
fates. I have seen him discovering, by degrees, as I 
discovered it, the radical, irremediable falsity of the 
heart to which he has given his own. I have pictured 
him reaching, one by one, the stages of disillusion, 
through which once I passed, and Jeanne developing, 
as her father did — from indifferent becoming hard, from 
artificial becoming false, from the simulator becoming 
the hyprocrite, — from the vain girl becoming the co- 
quettish woman, and my destiny repeating itself. When 
this idea first occurred to me, I banished it with all 
the force my reason possessed, saying to myself that I 
had no right to think thus of my daughter, that the 
circumstances which determined the moral decadence 
of her father would not be reproduced in her case; 
that, on the contrary, if there were a chance of safety 
for this nature so factitious and so cold-hearted, it was 
in the union with a sensibility like his. But it was 
in vain. No less vainly did I demonstrate to myself 
that it was my duty, between the two, to side with my 
daughter, and to establish her in the most favourable 
conditions. 

But these discussions with myself are of no impor- 
tance. They were ended one day, I cannot even now 


162 


ATTITUDES 


say why, by a violent, passionate, irresistible desire to 
cut short the intimacy which I saw increasing between 
Jeanne and Lucien; by an impossibility of allowing 
this marriage without insupportable remorse; and by 
this abrupt departure, of which I can now say that, at 
one point at least, it was very wise. I have had the 
proof that Jeanne is not at all interested in him, for 
I have not seen her sad for a moment since this separa- 
tion. And, as regards him, I have had the proof that I 
exaggerated the danger, since he has neither made, nor 
caused to be made, any movement which showed a 
desire to recall himself to our minds. 

March 18. 

I stopped writing last evening, my dear friend, in- 
tending to finish my letter this morning with some few 
details, of a more commonplace order, as to the result 
of our plans of travel. Perhaps you may detect by my 
handwriting that I resume it at a moment of extreme 
emotion. I said to you that Monsieur Salvan had 
done nothing to recall himself to our minds; and I 
concluded from this that the dawning interest which 
had so much terrified me had yielded to absence. Eh 
Uen! he has followed us. He is in Naples. This 
morning I have just received his card. This afternoon, 
this evening, to-morrow, he will see Jeanne again. 
Jeanne will see him. Dear friend, I implore you, 
write to me; tell me which way it seems to you that 
my duty lies, as woman and mother. 


ATTITUDES 


163 


If you think that I have been the victim of an un- 
reasonable scruple, in considering myself obliged to do 
all that is possible to prevent this marriage, which I 
believe must be disastrous for a man who, after all, is 
to me a stranger, your conscience will tranquillize mine. 
I am extremely disturbed by the certainty which I 
now feel that this young man loves my daughter. 

How I wish you were with me; how much you are 
needed by your friend, who embraces you most tenderly ! 

Mathilde Izelin. 


II 

While Madame Izelin, having closed her letter and 
sent it off, was asking herself whether or not she 
should mention to her daughter the visit of the young 
man whose presence in Naples she regretted for the 
complex reasons which have been summed up in 
these pages, he himself was no less disturbed, but from 
causes of an order much more simple. The mother 
had made no mistake ; Lucien Salvan was in love with 
Jeanne. The few weeks, which had followed the de- 
parture of the young girl, had been all the more insup- 
portable to him, because he had not for a moment deceived 
himself as to the secret intention of this sudden jour- 
ney. Madame Izelin desired in this way to interrupt 
a courtship so discreet that she had perhaps alone been 
aware of it. But that she had been aware of it the 


164 


ATTITUDES 


young man was certain. He could explain on no other 
supposition the change which he had noticed in her 
manner toward himself. After having shown a cor- 
diality of welcome which had seemed to his hopes 
almost a permission to approach her daughter, he had 
suddenly become aware that coldness had taken the 
place of friendliness. 

He had said to himself, “ I have made some mistake, 
but in what?” The most scrupulous self-examination 
furnished him no reply. At twenty-five years of age, 
and though brought up in Paris, Lucien had retained 
— Madame Izelin was correct in her opinion — that 
feminine sensitiveness which reacts in suffering, from 
the least rough touch, instead of reacting in resistance. 
Beings thus made have need, for their hearts to open 
freely, of a complicity of good will around them. 
Hostility makes them shut themselves in; but, at the 
same time, stimulates and develops still more that 
energy of the souPs dream which is their constant 
temptation and their danger. No longer daring to 
manifest to Jeanne so openly the interest that he felt, 
Lucien gave himself up more to the lovely and chi- 
merical idea that he formed of her for himself. Now 
that she was gone, and he could no longer ask himself 
each day when and how he could see her, his imagina- 
tive passion grew more and more intense. By force of 
turning over and over in his mind all possible data of 
the problem, he had arrived at this twofold convic- 


ATTITUDES 


165 


tion: first, that some one had cut the ground from 
under his feet with Madame Izelin — but who was it? — 
and, second, that the mother had planned some other 
marriage for her daughter. A name which he chanced 
to hear mentioned in the course of a conversation, that 
of a Monsieur de Barrois, the only young man of rank 
who frequented the society in which he had met Madame 
and Mademoiselle Izelin, had confirmed this suspicion 
in his mind. Four short sentences, thrown out at ran- 
dom, had sufficed to establish this mental certainty: 
“We don’t see Monsieur de Barrois now.” — “We shall 
see him again after Mademoiselle Izelin returns.” — 
“Oh! is that what you think?” — “I think he is very 
fond of her, and that Mathilde would be quite willing 
to have her daughter a marquise. Imagine it, my 
dear ! ” These few words ; the recollection, on the one 
hand, suddenly reawakened, of a ball where J eanne had 
danced several times with Monsieur de Barrois, and the 
recollection, on the other hand, of a certain look she 
had in speaking to himself ; the feeling, in spite of all, 
of that first friendliness he had been conscious of in 
Madame Izelin — is there need of anything more to ex- 
plain why, being at liberty to take a journey, and hav- 
ing first spent a week on the Riviera, another project, 
alike simple and romantic, had sprung up in his mind? 
He knew, from other conversations, that Jeanne and 
her mother had gone away with the intention of visiting 
Naples and Sicily, and coming up to Rome for Holy 


166 


ATTITUDES 


Week. He considered it probable that they would begin 
their journey at the most southern point, and accord- 
ingly, three days before his visit to the hotel, he had 
arrived in Naples. 

What should he now do? He did not know, nor 
even whether he should find those whom he sought; 
and when he had discovered after some hours of 
search that they were in a hotel on the Chiaja, very 
near his own, the rashness of his enterprise suddenly 
became apparent to him. For two days he had kept 
watch upon the movements of Madame Izelin and her 
daughter, concealed, like an evil-doer, in a corner 
from which he could see the door of this hotel, asking 
himself whether he should go openly and inquire for 
Madame Izelin or should present himself before them, 
as if by accident, in the street. Who has not known — 
who does not wish them back — those foolish uncertain- 
ties of love in its young days, when the reason tries to 
give a good account of that which is only the blind 
and tender instinct of the heart, starving for presence 
and sick with absence! 

What Lucien Salvan wished most of all was to show 
Madame Izelin the reality of his feeling. He wanted 
to say to her, Do not sacrifice me without giving me 
a hearing.” How would he set about formulating this 
appeal? He did not know, any more than he knew 
whether that look of Jeanne’s, which seemed to him 
the index of an emotion like his own, was anything 


ATTITUDES 


167 


else than childish pride at having pleased him so 
much. He had never dared to declare himself, and 
in the resolution of making this mad journey there 
lay, deeper still, the need to put matters to the test. 
If he found the young girl saddened by their separa- 
tion, it would be that she loved him. He had not been 
able to judge of her mood in seeing her pass, which 
had happened to him twice in those two days — with 
what emotion! He had seen the elegant figure, the 
lithe step, the complexion like a flower, the blond hair. 
But he could not discern the expression of the features 
or of the eyes. Nor had he been able to judge the 
mother’s face closely, only it appeared to him she was 
a little paler. 

Finally he had become ashamed of his hesitations, 
and also a little afraid lest these ladies might leave 
the city without his having even spoken to them ; and 
he had presented himself at their hotel that morning 
at eleven o’clock, with the idea that they would prob- 
ably not be at home; but he would leave his card for 
them, and they would thus know of his presence. He 
happened upon a concierge, luckily, who was disposed 
to talk, and in reply to the question, “When should I 
be most likely to find Madame Izelin at home?” readily 
replied : — 

“After breakfast, usually; but not to-day. These 
ladies are going to Pompeii at two o’clock.” 

Upon this the lover had left the hotel, and, as soon 


168 


ATTITUDES 


as he reached the sidewalk, had hailed a cab and had 
himself driven full speed to the railway station. A 
train would leave for Torre Annunziata a little before 
twelve. He had taken itj and while Madame Izelin, now 
seated at the breakfast table, continued to ask herself 
whether or not she should speak to her daughter of 
Lucien’s visit, and how she herself should receive the 
young man, he had arrived at Pompeii. This had 
been done so impulsively, the conception and execu- 
tion of the plan had been so closely mingled, that as 
he crossed the threshold of the dead city where he 
proposed to await Madame Izelin and her daughter, 
Salvan had a feeling that all this must be a dream. 
In less than twice thirty-five minutes, if he had been 
correctly informed, the two ladies would arrive by the 
same railway. 

“They will know that I am in Naples. There will 
be nothing surprising in their meeting me here. I 
shall not seem to be looking for them. It will be 
equally natural that I should join them in their visit 
and that I should take the same train to return. And 
what a place in which to see Jeanne!” 

While the lover thus reflected, he had walked in as 
far as the archway of the Porta Marina, and he had now 
before his eyes that apparition unique in the whole 
world, that phantom-like apparition of the city smitten 
in the midst of its holiday, that Pompeii buried under 
ashes eighteen hundred years ago. He began to go 


ATTITUDES 


169 


along through the streets where the small gray houses, 
roofless and doorless, rear their walls, still covered in 
places with coloured stucco, and reveal the secret of 
the activities or the leisures of former times. There 
are shops, the counters hollowed into holes, with the 
jars all ready for the oil or wine; there are inner court- 
yards with colonnades; a fountain basin in which the 
jet of water no longer tinkles; walls whose frescos are 
half effaced. Elsewhere the hearth of a kitchen chim- 
ney still keeps its tripods and caldrons. Farther on, 
an empty well shows its curb worn by the hands that 
leaned upon it. There is a certain wall along which is 
tangled a leaden network of water-pipes, supported, as 
they are with us, by rings of metal soldered at regular 
intervals. The chariot wheels have worn deep ruts in 
the paving-stones of the street, and the high sidewalks 
seem still to await the foot-passenger who took refuge 
there to avoid the vehicles. Peristyles of temples re- 
main in courts surrounded by porticos. Statues once 
adorned these courts; their great brick pedestals are 
yet standing; and everywhere, at the end of these 
streets, are the noble outlines of mountains — the Apen- 
nines, the hills of Castellamare ; and in the bay the sea 
sparkles with its islands. The marvellous sagacity 
that the ancients employed in selecting the sites of 
their cities is revealed, and that need they had of the 
caress of extensive views. The pagan animal lived so 
much in the open air! So many pleasures were en- 


170 


ATTITUDES 


joyed in the open forum, the open theatre, the open 
amphitheatre! The landscape had its share in all that 
he did; and at Pompeii the grace of this landscape 
became formidable when he who walked in the street, 
looking over his shoulder, perceived behind him the 
assassin of this merry city — the ominous volcano. This 
dangerous, beautiful Vesuvius dominates this enormous 
heap of ruins with its broad-based, graceful triangle of 
dark, velvety slopes; and on its summit the plume of 
smoke sways in the wind, white, yet now and then 
reddened by the reflection of the subterranean flame. 
The impression of the terrible destructive agencies of 
nature, thus lying close by the tokens of that human 
life so like our own, would fill the whole being with 
inexpressible alarm, were it not that the vast silence 
of the necropolis wraps us in a kind of peacefulness 
that is almost luxurious. It is the shudder in pres- 
ence of the gloomy abyss of the tomb; and it is the 
charm of its long sleep. It is the stage-setting of a 
tragedy; and it is, with the profound azure of this sky 
and the radiance of this sunshine, a vision of beauty so 
tranquillizing! It seems as if the advice of the poets 
who were contemporaries of these vacant houses, 
these ruined temples, these obliterated paintings, were 
still whispered in the surrounding atmosphere — that 
advice to be happy while remembering always that 
this happiness will pass away, to mingle with the most 
intoxicating savours of life the bitter taste of death. 


ATTITUDES 


171 


It is the silver skeleton that Trimalchio’s slave brings 
into the triclinium of a villa, doubtless exactly resem- 
bling this one of the Faunus or of the Vettii, while the 
rose-crowned guests repeat the Epicurean song: “We 
shall all be like this when Orcus has grasped us. Let 
us live, then, while it is permitted us to love ! ” 

The special turn of his mind would have, at any 
time, disposed Lucien Salvan to receive very keen sen- 
sations from this strange Pompeian d^cor. To this, 
occasion added that indescribable, penetrating emo- 
tion which seizes us when the drama of our own per- 
sonal destiny touches at some point a grand historic 
drama, and our individual happiness or unhappiness 
becomes a minute episode in an immense epic. It had 
been decreed that the tremendous eruption which terri- 
fied the ancient world should occur, that the ashes and 
scorise should be heaped up sixteen feet deep upon this 
gay city, that the kings of Naples and then the kings 
of Italy should have worked a century and a half at 
clearing up this colossal cemetery, in order that these 
remains of the ancient Greek colony might serve as a 
romantic scene for the meeting of the young man and 
the girl whom it was his dream to make his wife. 

The interview promised to be decisive ; of this Lucien 
was well aware. Either Madame Izelin would have 
told her daughter that he was in Naples, and the 
young girPs way of receiving this news would be to 
him a sure sign of her feelings toward him; or Jeanne 


172 


ATTITUDES 


remained unaware of his presence, and if he could 
study her face before she saw him he would know 
what effect this separation of several weeks had had 
upon her. If he found her evidently sad, grown pale, 
with the traces of suffering like those which he could 
read in his own face in the glass, then — then, it 
would be that she loved him! 

As the moments passed, the most contradictory hy- 
potheses in regard to this very near arrival of the two 
ladies were sketched out in Lucien’s imagination. He 
finally selected, just upon the hour for the train’s 
arrival, a post of observation where he would be sure 
to see them, and with every chance in favour of not 
being seen by them. He took shelter, armed with his 
lorgnette, at the corner of the wall which separates the 
temple of Apollo from the via Marina, a very short dis- 
tance from the sole entrance to the ruins. A few steps 
distant, on the opposite side of the street, was the en- 
closure of the Basilica, which it was almost certain 
would be the first place visited ; thence they would 
come to this temple of Apollo, while he would have 
time to make his escape before they arrived, and would 
then await them in the Forum, which they would take 
next in order. And so he was there, seated on a step, 
looking no longer at the columns of the temple, with 
the beautiful acanthus leaves of their Corinthian capi- 
tals, nor at the blue sky in the spaces between them, 
nor at a Hermes still standing on his marble pedestal. 


ATTITUDES 


173 


in the folds of whose mantle agile, green-headed lizards 
were darting about, nor at anything except that via 
Marina, where the wave of tourists brought by the 
train was beginning to spread itself. What if, at the 
last moment, Madame Izelin had changed her plan for 
the afternoon? What if, having received his card, she 
had left the city? What if — Suddenly Lucien’s 
heart stood still. He had seen them. They came in, 
a little after the rest, conducted by one of the guar- 
dians. In the field of the little glass, which was not 
quite steady in his hand, Lucien had the mother’s face 
and the daughter’s, both animated at this instant by 
impressions which suddenly caused him pain in that 
deep and unrecognized spot in the soul where we take 
cognizance of the infinitely small things of life. Ma- 
dame Izelin’s, which at first seemed veiled by some sad 
thought, began to express, from her first steps into this 
amazing city, a shock of surprise, in which Lucien rec- 
ognized his own recent feeling. Her eyes rested upon 
this scene, whose poetry was unexpected by her, with 
that kind of poignant interest which he had himself 
experienced. Her features grew eager with that sym- 
pathetic attention that he would have been so glad to 
see in the face of Jeanne, that he might at once have 
with her a kind of secret communion. Instead, the 
delicate face of the young girl, at the moment simply 
natural because she did not know herself observed, 
was lighted with the amused smile of a child whom 


174 


ATTITUDES 


this poetry emanating from things does not reach at 
all. Lucien would have reproached himself with it, 
as with a crime, to wish that her face might bear some 
trace of sadness. And yet it was a blow to him to 
observe that, since leaving Paris, she had gained that 
air of health revealing the perfect development of a 
young organism which no painful emotion has dis- 
turbed. If she knew of his presence in Naples, evi- 
dently she was indifferent to it. If she did not know 
it, their separation was also to her a matter of indif- 
ference. Her brilliant, vivacious eyes regarded the 
ruins with a curiosity which had no other aim than to 
gratify the most innocent, but also the least romantic 
of whims. Jeanne held in her hand a small camera, 
and her one interest, during these first few minutes, was 
to find a good position for a snap-shot. Suddenly she 
stopped, and Lucien could see that she was “ taking ” 
first the Marina and then the door of the Basilica. It 
seemed to him — but was it not an effect of the imag- 
ination? — that the mother who looked on, also, at this 
child’s play in which her daughter was employed, had 
around her mouth a half-smile of pity. Almost imme- 
diately the two disappeared behind the stone enclosure 
of the building, and Lucien himself walked toward 
the Porum. 

“What is the change in her ?” he was saying to 
himself. “ She seems like another person to me. She 
does not know that I am here, and her journey dis- 


ATTITUDES 


1T5 


tracts her. That is all. It is perfectly natural, and 
I am an egoist.” 

Thus he reasoned with himself, leaning against one 
of the enormous masses of masonry which served as 
bases, the whole length of the Forum, for colossal 
equestrian statues. An hour earlier, upon entering 
this place, over which dominates the grand temple con- 
secrated to J upiter, he had been, even amid the anxiety 
of his expectation, penetrated by that imposing some- 
thing, the atmosphere of Koman grandeur which forever 
floats over the place where have been engraved the 
letters of the sacred formula of the S.P.Q.E. No son 
of the Latin land has ever looked at them but that the 
blood of his ancestors thrilled within him. A veil was 
now drawn for him over these monuments, over this 
blue sky, over this history. He had now only one 
thought in his mind: ‘‘She is changed. What has 
happened?” 

During these weeks of absence, the image of Jeanne, 
which he had never seen in its reality even when pres- 
ent, had still further been modified in his heart, to the 
point of becoming absolutely different from the actual 
person. And then, in Paris, every time he had met 
the young girl she, seeing herself observed by him, 
had so naturally exercised for his benefit her talent for 
attitudes! She had, by instinct and with an infallibly 
sure coquetry, posed for him as a child all emotion, all 
sensibility! She had made, with such subtle divination 


176 


ATTITUDES 


the soul-gestures which would fascinate him! Now, 
for the first time, he had surprised her unarmed, so to 
speak, just as she was by herself and unwatched; and 
for the first time, also, he had the intuition, faint as 
a presentiment, that he did not know this creature, 
even while believing himself so much in love with her. 
There were the same features, but there were no longer 
the same expressions. There was the same face, but 
not the same look. Lucien, however, had not time to 
analyze this vague, confused disappointment. Already 
the large, dark-blue straw hat trimmed with bluets and 
surmounted by a simple knot of crimson silk, which 
framed the delicate face of Jeanne, appeared at the end 
of the place, and her figure so slender in the travelling- 
dress of navy-blue serge, and her red parasol, matching 
the colour on her hat. At her side, always a little 
behind her, he recognized the mother’s round hat with 
black and white trimming, her dress of steel-gray, her 
parasol also gray. In the difference of dress, even, the 
difference in character of the two was manifested : the 
one, always a little too brilliant and emphatic, the other, 
always a little too modest and reserved. But if, later, 
Lucien, as he remembered this arrival, was destined to 
make this observation, and to draw from it this con- 
clusion, at the moment one single idea absorbed all 
others: if he wished to present himself to Madame 
Izelin, and accompany her and Jeanne in their walk 
through the ruins, he must decide, and at once. One 


ATTITUDES 


177 


last attack of timidity, one last effort, and he was in 
their presence. 

The mother had been the first to see him. The little 
nervous shock which she experienced — as the young 
man saluted her and, with the most pathetic awkward- 
ness, stammered a few words expressive of surprise — 
found outward manifestation only in the slightly dulled 
tone of her voice in reply. As for Jeanne, a little 
colour came into her cheeks, and in her eyes there was 
that sudden brilliancy which announces, in a coquette, 
the only joy that she can feel — that of having there, 
in her presence, an evident proof of her power. It was 
but for a moment, and then that changeful face was 
stamped with the feeling that a young girl ought to 
have to whom a young man offers a proof of passionate 
devotion — a feeling equally remote from a coolness 
discouraging to the worshipper and from an emotion 
which would be an avowal or an encouragement. Lu- 
cien, meanwhile, was beginning, after the first sen- 
tences of commonplace politeness, to explain his journey 
in embarrassed language which quickly convicted him 
of deceit: — 

“I have not been quite well,” he said; ‘‘the winter, 
in Paris, became so severe after you left. My doctor 
recommended a milder climate. And I had never been 
in Italy. I yielded to the temptation. And I came as 
far as Naples. It was yesterday, in looking over the 
list of strangers in the reading-room of my hotel, that 


178 


ATTITUDES 


I saw your name, madame. And I took the liberty of 
going to inquire for you this morning. You are quite 
well, madame, and also Mademoiselle Jeanne?” 

“Quite well,” replied the mother. The young man’s 
timidity, the hesitating tone of his voice, the mute en- 
treaty of his eyes, touched her. She saw in his face 
that he had really suffered; and for a moment pity got 
the better of her scruples. She added: “You must tell 
us all the news from Paris. If you have not finished 
your visit here, we will walk on together.” 

“I have only just come,” Lucien said. To meet once 
more in Madame Izelin, whose coldness had so much 
disconcerted him, the cordiality of the very first days 
of their acquaintance, was so great a surprise that it 
brought the colour to his face, and he began walking 
along with the two ladies without any more recollection 
of his recent impression of disappointment than if 
Jeanne had presented herself to his first look just as 
she now was. By what magic power of second sight 
had this young actress perceived what was expected of 
her and what impersonation she must adopt to complete 
his fascination? Certain it is that her amused smile 
of the earlier moments had given place to pathetic sur- 
prise, and that her eyes wandered over the ruins with 
a discreet melancholy. She was no longer interested 
in “taking” the snap-shots which later should divert 
her young friends in Paris. She was in truth — with 
her refined blond beauty, the pretty, graceful slenderness 


ATTITUDES 


179 


of her waist, of her throat, of her wrists and ankles — 
the lovely apparition that Lucien had dreamed of meet- 
ing: Youth, touched with a tender sadness in the midst 
of what represents one of the most poignant tragedies 
of history ; Hope, amidst the relics of a destroyed civil- 
ization and itself gently saddened by the eternal men- 
ace of Fate, imprinted everywhere in this desolation. 
And she was careful not to ask, “what was going on in 
Paris,” as her mother had suggested. Did there exist 
such a thing as society? Were there balls and all man- 
ner of gossip? The young girl seemed to have forgot- 
ten them completely. She moved on, contenting herself 
with the utterance of a few words, now and then, very 
vague, doubtless, and very easily said, but, from these 
girlish lips, extraordinarily significant to her lover. 

“ What strikes me, ” she said, pointing to those aban- 
doned shops, those vacant baths, those empty court- 
yards, “ is, how few new things there are in life ! If a 
rain of ashes were to bury one of our cities, there would 
be nothing very different found from all this. It is 
a great commentary on the catechism’s ‘ vanity of 
vanities.’ ” 

“Do you not think,” she said, later, as they sat down 
on one of the steps of the theatre, “that a tragedy 
played here, with only a few spectators, and all this 
vacant city outside, would have an extremely fine ef- 
fect?” And she added: “The portions of these ruins, 
which are most impressive to me, are those which re- 


180 


ATTITUDES 


call scenes of festivity. Very often, at the theatre, the 
idea comes over me that all of us, the audience and the 
actors alike, are under sentence of death, and I imagine 
the place empty, and everybody gone. It is this dream 
that is realized here, and we shudder at it.” 

“I should like so much to know,” she questioned in 
front of the colonnade of the little temple of Isis, 
“whether there were Christians in Pompeii when this 
catastrophe occurred? If there were, they must have 
been the only ones who had a hope.” 

And in the Street of the Tombs, before the bas-relief 
of Naevoleia Tyche, which represents a vessel coming 
into port: “I was just saying, you know, that there 
was nothing new! What other comparison could we 
invent now to express the peace of heaven after the 
storms of earth?” 

These words occurred to her so ingenuously, she ap- 
peared so fully to comprehend and to feel all the poetry 
of the dead city, that Lucien listened with an admira- 
tion which kept him from observing the absolutely con- 
ventional character of all these remarks : that they were 
so general, so commonplace, so stupid, in fact, ought 
to have shown him that this facile melancholy of the 
tourist expressed no direct personal feeling. But this 
mimicry of sentiment was accompanied with such a 
skilful play of lips and eyelids, Jeanne had such a 
clever trick of placing her reflections between two 
silences, as if she were thinking aloud! And the 


ATTITUDES 


181 


lover, on his part, yielded to a hypnotism of credu- 
lity which would have risen to the height of rapture 
had he not again observed how the mother’s face grew 
sombre. Madame Izelin, in fact, from the first words 
of this kind that her daughter had begun to speak, 
herself became silent. She now saw Lucien hanging 
upon this voice which she knew to be so false, and 
Jeanne improvising and carrying on a comedy the char- 
acter of which the mother so well understood; and 
the suffering which she had come to Italy to escape, 
seized upon her anew with more force than ever. This 
had come to a point where to continue the walk was 
more than she could bear. It was halfway in this 
Street of Tombs, and in front of the bas-relief of the 
vessel on whose symbolic meaning Jeanne had just now 
commented, her eyes full of poetry. The evidence of 
pose in this child who was her daughter became too 
intolerable to her clearsightedness, and too intolerable 
the evidence of being its dupe, in this young man who 
himself really had, she felt, all the emotions which 
the other feigned to have. She said to them: — 

I am tired. I will sit here while you go on to the 
end of the street.” 

^^But let us sit here with you, mamma,” the girl 
said, with a solicitude that Madame Izelin repulsed 
almost harshly. 

“No,” she replied. “I prefer to be alone.” 

“Can you tell me if Madame Izelin is displeased in 


182 


ATTITUDES 


any way?” Lucien ventured to ask his companion as 
soon as they had gone a few steps. “ It almost seems 
as if she were not willing to see me herej and still, 
she was so kind to me at first ! ” 

‘^It is not you she is displeased with,” said the young 
girl, “it is I.” 

“You?” he asked. “But why?” 

“Because I have ventured to talk a little,” Jeanne 
answered, shaking her dainty head, “and you have 
seemed interested in what I was saying. Do not suppose, 
however, that she is severe toward me. No. But she 
has her ideas. How can I explain this to you? My 
poor father was so good to her. He accustomed her to 
take the first place always, don’t you understand? It 
is only natural that she should not like giving it up, and 
to have any one seem to prefer me causes her pain. In 
short, will you pay a little more attention to her? And 
I beg of you, let us talk of something else.” 

This was said so well, in a tone half sad, half child- 
ish, that Lucien, the fastidious, did not even notice 
that in thus calling his attention to what she pretended 
was the mother’s jealousy toward herself, the girl 
whom he hoped to make his wife was committing one 
of those petty moral parricides which he would have 
inexorably condemned in any other person. On the 
contrary, his feeling was one of sympathizing respect 
for the reserve of this child who left her complaint 
unfinished. 


ATTITUDES 


183 


Could it be that this was truly the solution of the 
enigma which had barred his way so many times within 
these last few weeks, and that the admiration Jeanne 
inspired had excited in Madame Izelin that base and 
hateful envy of a younger woman ^s charm and beauty, 
always sad to see in a woman beginning to grow old, 
but almost monstrous between a mother and her daugh- 
ter? In a heart so imaginative and passionate as that 
of Jeanne’s lover, an idea like this must cause 
revolution. 

It did, indeed, produce such an effect that, for the 
rest of the afternoon at Pompeii and during the return 
to Naples, it was now Madame Izelin’ s turn to be 
amazed at the change in him. Without a word being 
said on the subject and quite as a matter of course, 
the young man had left Pompeii with the two ladies 
and, no less naturally, entered the same railway car- 
riage with them. Notwithstanding Jeanne’s suggestion, 
he could not take upon himself the task of conversing 
with this mother in whose nature had suddenly been 
revealed to him such unworthy, such guilty, ways of 
feeling. Jeanne, on her part, — a little ashamed after 
all, in her conscience, at the calumny her insatiable 
need of playing a part had suggested to her without 
her fully measuring its scope, — was silent. The mother 
looked at the two with an intuition that, during the 
few minutes when she had so imprudently left them 
together, words of extreme importance had been spoken. 


184 


ATTITUDES 


But what were they? The train went on, following 
this coast of black lava, bathed with a blue sea. The 
sublimity of the view, which ended with the luminous 
point of Sorrento, the sharp rock of Capri, the softly 
outlined mountains of Ischia and of Posilippo, did not 
appease this feminine sensitiveness which perhaps was 
not fully conscious of itself. At the moment when the 
train entered the station at Naples, the fever of her 
anxiety had so gained upon Madame Izelin that she 
could not endure the idea of undergoing longer the un- 
certainty into which she was again plunged. The 
necessity of a definite explanation with Lucien imposed 
itself upon her. J eanne had stepped out first, and the 
young man stood back to give Madame Izelin room to 
pass. Then the mother, with an abrupt, imperative 
voice, in which he could detect the extreme disturbance 
from which she was suffering, said to him: — 

“ I wish to see you. Come to my hotel in the morn- 
ing at half -past ten. But by no means let her — and 
she indicated Jeanne by a glance — ^‘know of it. I 
rely upon your honour for this.^’ 


Ill 

The mental distress into which this interview, so 
strangely and abruptly appointed, had plunged Lucien 
Salvan had not abated when, at the designated hour. 


ATTITUDES 


185 


he was ushered into the salon of Madame Izelin^s little 
apartment at the hotel. Why had she made him come? 
What decision, fatal to his happiness, was she about 
to announce to him? 

Before the conversation of the preceding day, while 
Jeanne had not as yet revealed to him her mother’s 
jealous sensitiveness, this interview would not have 
been at all alarming to the young man. He would 
have taken the opportunity thus offered him to carry 
out the plan which had led him to make his irrational 
journey. He would have shown this woman, who cer- 
tainly could not remain entirely indifferent to it, the 
sincerity of his feeling for her daughter. He felt 
himself silenced, since she cherished this strange and 
wicked envy, of which her daughter seemed to stand 
so much in fear. And, again, Lucien had said to him- 
self that such an aberration was not in human nature, 
that he must have misunderstood what Jeanne had said 
to him, or, possibly, that she herself had been mistaken. 
His agitation was carried to its height by the manner 
in which this woman, to his mind so mysterious and 
upon whom depended the happiness or misery of his 
life, now received him. 

She was seated near a window opening upon the vast 
picture of Vesuvius and the bay. With her whitening 
hair, her pallid face, the gray tonality of her dress, she 
gave so little the idea of a person who suffers from the 
homage offered to another. Everything in her face 


186 


ATTITUDES 


revealed a supreme self-renunciation, a mortification 
of self, a soul wliose desires are turned, solely and 
irrevocably, toward peace. Her eyes, especially, when 
they rested upon the young man, gave a convincing 
denial to the accusation that Jeanne had made. Their 
glance was so direct, so profound, so serious! There 
are expressions of eyes which cannot be reconciled with 
meanness of heart. It was evident that this interview 
was no less agitating to her than to the young man j her 
face revealed insomnia, and her hand slightly trembled. 
She made a sign to Lucien to be seated, and began 
speaking to him. In the course of her reflections dur- 
ing the night, she had bitterly reproached herself for 
having yielded hastily to the impulse of the moment. 
She had said to herself that she ought not to betray to 
a stranger the irremediable lack of sincerity of which 
she could not but be conscious in her daughter; that 
she might bring forward objections to a marriage 
between Lucien and Jeanne without alluding to the lat- 
ter’s character at all ; and she had decided upon a plan 
which she now began to put in execution. She pro- 
posed to appeal to the young man’s generosity, feeling 
quite sure that to touch this string would awaken an 
echo in his soul. 

‘‘I desired to speak with you. Monsieur Salvan,” she 
said, “because I have a very sincere esteem for you. 
There are decisions which a mother has the right to 
make without giving to any one her reasons for doing 


ATTITUDES 


187 


so. But I recognize in you a nature too noble, and too 
sensible also, to be willing to act toward you as I 
would toward another. I merely ask you to answer me 
first this question: Suppose that one of your friends 
from Paris had met us yesterday at Pompeii, yourself, 
my daughter, and me — what would he have thought?” 

‘‘But, madame,” the young man said confusedly, “if 
I had supposed that my presence displeased you, I 
would have left you — you and Mademoiselle Jeanne — 
at once. It was by your own authorization.” 

“I was obliged to ask you to join us,” the mother 
said, “ and I do not regret doing so. It was my wish 
to see you with my daughter; I did see you with her. 
If I had had the least doubt on certain points, it would 
have been dispelled. Speak to me frankly, my child.” 
At the moment when she was about to deal the blow, 
she could not resist giving him, in this affectionate ap- 
pellation, a proof of her pity for the suffering she must 
inflict. “Yes,” she insisted, “answer me. Do you 
believe that this friend from Paris, of whom I spoke, 
would have believed that we had met there by accident? ” 

“No, madame,” he said simply. 

“Be frank to the end,” Madame Izelin continued, 
“and confess that your whole journey had but one 
thing in view: that you came to Naples because you 
desired to see Jeanne.” 

“I confess it,” Lucien replied. He felt, while Ma- 
dame Izelin spoke, that kind of dismayed confusion 


188 


ATTITUDES 


which overcomes young men like him, modest in their 
feelings to the extent of shyness, when one of their 
most inner secrets is put into words in their presence. 
They were aware that this secret was known to the 
person talking with them, and still, the clear state- 
ment of it discomposes them as much as if they had 
felt themselves secure of absolute mystery. It will 
happen, then, that instead of trying to conceal a part, 
at least, of what they had resolved to keep secret, they 
feel a need of complete frankness, and, in their turn, 
speak words of which they would have believed them- 
selves forever incapable. Jeanne’s lover repeated, “I 
confess it;” and then went on, astonished, himself, at 
what he was daring to say: “I understand now that I 
did wrong, and that you might very easily have mis- 
judged me. It will appear to you irrational, but it 
is perfectly true, I never for a moment thought of the 
possibility of being recognized by some person of our 
acquaintance — of my presence here being known, in- 
terpreted, commented upon. Since you understand me 
so well, you have also become aware what my feeling 
is toward Mademoiselle Jeanne. But I know too well 
that you have perceived it. I know that you left 
Paris on that account, because you thought me too 
devoted to her. Then I was most unhappy. I said 
to myself that some one had spoken ill of me to 
you. I believed this. I believed, also, that you had 
a plan for another marriage for Mademoiselle Jeanne. 


ATTITUDES 


189 


A name had been mentioned in my hearing. I could 
not bear this uncertainty, and so I left home. It was 
my intention to remain in the south of France, to en- 
deavour to ascertain the date of your return, and to 
meet you somewhere in the north of Italy. Then I 
thought that I might come to meet you as far as Flor- 
ence; then I thought I might come to Rome. At last 
the temptation was too strong; and I am here. I have 
told the whole story, madame. If you order me to 
leave Naples, I shall obey you. But I beg you to be- 
lieve me, there was no subterfuge on my part, and 
never for an instant did I dream that my journey could 
compromise Mademoiselle Izelin.” 

“She was not informed of your leaving home?” the 
mother asked. 

“ Ah ! madame ! ” he replied, so excessively shocked 
he could scarcely conceal it. 

“ How he loves her ! ” thought Madame Izelin, at this 
new proof of the infinite delicacy of this heart of a 
young man ; and she replied : “ I believe you. Monsieur 
Salvan; and I am very grateful to you for having 
spoken with this entire sincerity. I will respond to it 
with an equal sincerity. It is very true,” she added, 
after a moment^s hesitation, “that I took my daughter 
away from Paris because of you. But do not reproach 
yourself. You have overstepped in no way in your atten- 
tions the limits that an honourable man should fix for 
himself where a young girl is concerned. Nor has any 


190 


ATTITUDES 


person spoken ill of you to me. I should not have 
allowed it, having too carefully observed you not to 
have formed a definite judgment in regard to you. I 
have already told you that I esteem you highly — ah, 
yes! infinitely.” 

She said these last words with an emotion that she 
could hardly conceal; and this completed Lucien Sal- 
van’s mental confusion. This esteem in which she held 
him was too violently in contrast with the resolution 
that she had had, that she still had, to separate him 
from her daughter; and he could not but protest against 
this contradiction, all the more painful to him, the more 
unintelligible it was. 

“But, then, madame,” he exclaimed, “why have you 
treated me, why do you still treat me, like a person 
whom you do not esteem? I know that I have noth- 
ing which could very much gratify a mother’s pride, 
that my family are of bourgeois station, and that I my- 
self am destined to a career simply honourable. But 
is there here a reason that justifies this determined 
refusal which I feared in your departure from Paris, 
which I now read in your eyes, in your tone, in your 
whole attitude? You have made other engagements? 
I think it must be so,” he continued, shaking his head, 
“and you will not tell me. You have the right — 
and still,” he added, in an agonized voice, “if it is the 
young man whose name has been mentioned to me, I 
swear to you, madame, that Mademoiselle Jeanne would 
be happier with me ! ” 


ATTITUDES 


191 


This cry of ingenuous jealousy had no sooner escaped 
him than he felt its imprudence. But how recall the 
spoken word? 

“A person has been mentioned to you?” she asked. 
“ Tell me who it is. Yes, tell me. I have a right to 
know what is said about my daughter.” 

‘^Monsieur de Barrois,” he answered, after a minute 
of hesitation. 

Monsieur de Barrois,” repeated the mother. 
thank you for letting me know. It is natural enough,” 
she continued, with an irony which revealed the in- 
creasing fatigue of her nerves, ‘Hhat this man of rank 
who comes among bourgeois like ourselves to obtain a 
dowry should circulate this report. I shall put a stop 
to it. It is not less natural,” she added, ‘^that jealousy 
should make you credit a bit of gossip so absurd. Bor, 
after all, what has Monsieur de Barrois in his favour? 
The man is a libertine and an idler. He has a title, it 
is true. Did you think,” she insisted, ‘Hhat I was 
capable of deciding for this reason, for the sake of hav- 
ing a daughter a marquise? Yes,” she affirmed, seeing, 
at this simple remark, the colour again come into the 
young man’s face, ‘^you did think it.” And her voice 
grew singularly bitter. “Ah! that would indeed be 
too great a deception to have certain feelings if one did 
not have them for one’s self. Besides, we do not deceive 
ourselves. When I saw that you were interested in 
Jeanne, Monsieur Salvan,” she resumed, “did I try 


192 


ATTITUDES 


to find base motives for your conduct? Why did you 
seek them for mine, when you saw that I took my 
daughter away, and understood that I was opposed to 
your marrying her? Why did you not give me credit? 
Why did you not think in this way: ‘Madame Izelin 
knows her daughter better than I do, she feels that 
our characters are not suited to each other, and she 
wishes to save us both from disappointments, that is 
alP? Even you might have been able to divine,” and 
it was her turn now to colour slightly, “that this reso- 
lution was painful, is painful, to me. I have not con- 
cealed from you how sympathetic you were to me; I 
do not conceal it now. You have in your nature every 
refinement, every loyalty, I am perfectly conscious, 
that a woman who has had the experience of life could 
desire in a son-in-law. If I am opposed to this mar- 
riage, it is for no egoistic reason. Try, then, to 
understand this, and do not oblige me to say more.” 

“I think I understand you, madame,” Lucien re- 
plied, after a silence. While the mother was speaking, 
and as it will happen in certain moments of decisive 
explanation, all the contradictory impressions through 
which he had passed since he had been occupied with 
Jeanne, at once reawakened in him. He remembered 
both the hopes that he formed from her cordial wel- 
come, and his uncertainties at other times, his disap- 
pointment the preceding day, for instance, when he 
perceived her enter Pompeii, so evidently indifferent 


ATTITUDES 




and frivolous; then, their sudden sympathy of feeling 
during the visit to the dead city, the mother’s increas- 
ing disapproval at the intimacy of their conversation, 
and the explanation of it which Jeanne had given him. 
The enigma of his situation toward these two women 
became more and more obscure, unless the key to it 
was simply that the mother and daughter misunder- 
stood one another. “Yes,” he continued, “you are sure 
that Mademoiselle Jeanne does not love me. If this 
is so,” and a tone of entreaty passed into his voice, 
“and if, as to me, you have that esteem for which I 
am deeply grateful, do you think it right to forbid me 
to try to make myself loved by her? There exists 
between Mademoiselle Izelin and myself, permit me 
to say to you, so much mental resemblance, we have so 
naturally the same way of feeling, that this sympathy 
might perhaps become on her part something closer. 
If you will allow me merely to live somewhat in her 
atmosphere, not now, not during this journey, I am 
too well aware that social proprieties forbid it, but in 
Paris, in the society where we should naturally meet, 
that would be a test. Do I need to assure you that, 
if you permit me this, I will act with all prudence and 
discretion; and if, in six months, in a year, I have 
not been able to make myself loved by her then — yes, 
I shall feel it only too just that you should send me 
away. But from now till then — ” 

“From now till then,” she interrupted with her seri- 


ATTITUDES 


ir4 

ous voice, “I shall have allowed you to waste your 
life, to fill your noble, generous heart still more full of 
a sentiment which I am sure, understand me, absolutely 
sure, will never be shared.” 

“ Why not? ” he asked. 

‘‘Why not? Because that identity which you believe 
exists between your ways of feeling and hers exists 
only in your imagination; because you are a soul of 
one race and she is a soul of another; because it is 
still not too late for you to tear yourself away from 
that which will never be anything but a mirage. I 
have been like you,” she insisted, with the tone of one 
who is calling up memories from the very depths of 
her heart and her past ; “ like you, I stood on the edge 
of life; like you, I was fascinated by what I believed 
to be an accord of souls, a something true. And it 
was all false. Ah! if any one had spoken to me then 
as I now speak to you ! ” 

She stopped, terrified at having made an allusion so 
direct to her own marriage. Although the language 
of this half-confession was singularly obscure to the 
young man who listened to it, there was too much 
sincere grief expressed there for him not to be touched 
by it, and at the same time he formed a too evident 
conclusion: Madame Izelin was opposing his marriage 
to her daughter because she had, in regard to this 
daughter's character and heart, a mistrust — of what 
nature? a suspicion — a suspicion of what? This evi- 


ATTITUDES 


195 


dence was suddenly so hard for the lover to endure that 
he replied: — 

“But are you sure, madame, that you are not mis- 
taken? It is very daring in me to touch on such a 
subject, but in saying to me what you have just now 
said, you give me the proof of so much confidence! 
And, besides, I cannot leave you, now, without being 
entirely frank myself. I do not know what will be 
the result of this conversation for myself. I should 
be, not consoled but yet less unhappy, if it resulted 
in clearing up, in some degree, a situation which I can 
see must be most painful both for you and for another 
person. You must pardon me,” he added, hesitating as 
he spoke, “if I venture thus to interpret your words. 
It seems to me that they give the idea that the chances 
of unhappiness, if you consented to grant me your 
daughter’s hand, would not come from my side. Par- 
don me if I go still farther. But, yesterday, in our 
walk in Pompeii, it seemed to me that she felt, also, 
on your part, a severity, — almost an ill-will, — and 
that she suffered from it. I have not lived very long, 
and still I know that between natures of great delicacy, 
and seemingly most fitted for mutual esteem, there may 
be a settled misunderstanding. I was only too con- 
scious yesterday that Mademoiselle Izelin — she also, 
on her part — was disturbed at not being fully in har- 
mony with you, and that she was made unhappy by it.” 

“Ah!” the mother said. “She spoke of me to you? 


196 


ATTITUDES 


I might have known it. And at what time in the day? 
While you were finishing your walk in the Street of 
Tombs, and I waited for you? I suspected it.” 

“Madame,” exclaimed the young man, “do not, I im- 
plore you, take in this way what I have been so unsuc- 
cessfully trying to say to you. I had seemed to divine 
in your face a certain displeasure — ” 

“And then,” Madame Izelin interrupted, “you ques- 
tioned her? You asked what was the matter? And 
what did she tell you? But I, too, divined it, what it 
was that she told you, merely by looking at you after- 
ward, merely by seeing you now! She complained of 
me,” the mother continued, as if speaking to herself. 
“It would be so, of course; and you believed her — that 
would be so, too.” 

She had risen, while saying these words, to which 
Salvan dared not reply. It is with certain conversa- 
tions as with those walks over undermined ground, 
where suddenly the foot awakens an echo so prolonged 
that one stops short. It was a like surprise at the echo 
of his words that now seized Lucien. He became con- 
scious of secret, unexplored depths, of all the interior 
ravage of prolonged meditations and solitary griefs, in 
this woman who now alarmed him by the inexplicable 
emotion with which he saw her overcome. She had 
ceased looking at him, and had gone, as if to tranquil- 
lize herself, to lean upon the window-sill. He saw the 
gray masses of her hair, her head resting upon her 


ATTITUDES 


197 


white, contracted hand, her other hand nervously grasp- 
ing the edge of the window. What meant this sudden 
outburst of indignation against — what? Against a 
complaint whose nature she could not even suspect? 
What inconceivable, strained relations existed between 
this mother and this daughter, that they should appear 
to suffer from each other to this degree? But Lucien 
had not been dreaming yesterday; Jeanne had really 
said to him those words: “I have ventured to talk a 
little, and you have seemed to be interested in what I 
was saying. That is why she is displeased.” And — 
to make still clearer the meaning that was clear enough 
already, of what she had said — she had added the re- 
mark about her father, explaining, if not excusing, the 
widow’s sensitiveness toward her daughter, younger, 
and in the full charm of her beauty. Nor had he been 
dreaming just now, in hearing Madame Izelin refer to 
her own marriage, and utter that cry, wherein was ex- 
pressed all the sadness of her ruined life, that It was 
all false ! ” that “ If any one had spoken to me then as 
I now speak to you ! ” She, then, had been unhappy in 
her marriage? That Jeanne should not know this was 
only natural. But it was not natural that the mother 
should hold enmity toward her daughter because of the 
miseries of her own married life. Nor was it natural 
that, at the faintest suggestion, she should suspect the 
girl of being unjust toward her. The young man was 
afraid of what she might be going to say to him when 


198 


ATTITUDES 


she should emerge from this silence, more strange than 
her words. His heart beat hard, as at the approach of 
some catastrophe, when she suddenly turned, her face 
contracted, her eyes almost stern. 

^‘Jeanne is coming in,” she said abruptly. “She is 
just getting out of the carriage at the door of the 
hotel. In two minutes she will be here. Place your- 
self there,” and she indicated to Lucien the door which 
from the little salon led into her own room, “behind 
this portiere,” and she pulled together the heavy mate- 
rial, after partly opening one leaf of the door. “ You 
must do it,” she continued; “you must know the truth. 
Then you can decide for yourself.” She repeated, “You 
must do it,” and there was such imperative command 
in her look that the young man obeyed, without demur, 
a plan whose eccentric character only became clear to 
him when, hidden behind the heavy folds of damask, 
he began to hear the two voices, that of the mother 
and that of the daughter, exchanging very simple, un- 
meaning remarks, as it would have seemed to any other 
person than himself. 

But the words which Jeanne was saying, believing 
herself alone with her mother, so belied her words of 
the preceding day, her way of taking a certain allusion 
that Madame Izelin made contrasted so strongly with 
the kind of restrained feeling that she had shown to 
Lucien in the visit to Pompeii — the entire conversa- 
tion was so evident a proof of the artificialness of this 


ATTITUDES 


199 


nature, in which all was expression and nothing was 
true with genuine truth, that the man who loved her 
could have cried out with anguish. This evidence was 
made more painful and more convincing by this pecu- 
liarity of it — that he heard the timbre of the young 
girPs voice without seeing her face. For the first time, 
being no longer under the prestige of her delicious 
beauty, all in her that was so self-willed and so facti- 
tious was, as it were, made perceptible to him by her 
tone of voice. She had a certain too gentle and slightly 
emphatic way of uttering her sentences, which had been 
extremely fascinating to him when smiles and glances 
accompanied this intonation. He suddenly felt that this 
beautiful voice spoke falser and it hurt him once more in 
that place far within, where one perceives the infinitely 
small things of life, those nothings that escape analysis 
and almost consciousness. But what a role they play 
in the history of one^s heart! They are the only reve- 
lations that we have of the personality in those whom 
we love or whom we hate — that personality which may 
possibly be unlike what they do at any given time, but 
can hardly fail to be like their voice, if only we know 
how to listen to it! 

“Well!” the mother had said, “did you find what 
you wanted? ” 

“Yes, mamma,” Jeanne had replied. “I decided 
on the dog-collar with nine strands, with the little 
gold bars. I can exchange these in Paris for bars with 


200 


ATTITUDES 


pearls. You should see how pale the coral is, almost 
white, so becoming to me! So good of you, mamma, 
to give me this ! You are always so good to me ! ” 

‘‘You are happy with me, then?” the mother asked. 

“Perfectly happy,” the young girl replied. “Why 
should I not be? You are so indulgent to me, always.” 

“Perhaps I shall not have a very long time to pet 
you,” Madame Izelin resumed. “I am so worn out. 
You know life has not always been easy for me.” 

“I know it, mamma,” said Jeanne. “You have not 
been ill, this morning?” 

“No,” the mother replied. “But when I think of 
you and that you will soon be married, I say to myself 
that you may perhaps have great trials in your life as 
a woman, and I would like to be sure that at least you 
have had none in your life as a girl.” 

“What trials could I have had, mamma?” Jeanne 
asked. 

“ One never knows,” the mother answered. “ If there 
were anything in my way of treating you that has given 
you pain, — even the least, — you must tell me.” 

“ What an idea ! ” the young girl said coaxingly . She 
took her mother^s hand and kissed it. The soft sound 
of her lips in a long caress was just audible to Lucien, 
whose heart almost stopped beating as he heard this 
question put by the girl in a tone half playful, half 
emotional: “I think you must have some reason for 
speaking to me like this? I think I know what 


ATTITUDES 


201 


it is! There is some new plan in the air as to my 
marriage.’^ 

‘‘You are quite right,” Madame Izelin replied. 

“And may one ask the candidate’s name?” said the 
girl, still playfully. 

“It has come to my knowledge,” replied Madame 
Izelin, “ that Monsieur de Barrois has sounded some of 
our friends to know whether he could take a step in 
this direction on our return. I have not yet replied. 
You know I have told you, once for all, that when you 
are asked in marriage by any one, I shall tell you all the 
objections that I think are well founded; and then I 
shall leave you to decide freely. What do you think 
of Monsieur de Barrois?” 

“I think,” said the young girl, “that I have never 
dreamed of him as a husband, but that I find him very 
agreeable.” 

“You have no positive objection, then?” the mother 
asked. 

“Not any at all,” said Jeanne. 

“There is no other person, then, whom you love?” 
insisted Madame Izelin. 

“ There is one person whom I love — it is you I ” said 
the girl. And her companion of the preceding day, 
with a yet more painful amazement, heard her play 
her role of the petted and grateful child. That one, 
among all the attitudes of this truthless soul, was the 
one from which the mother naturally suffered most. 


202 


ATTITUDES 


She slipped away from it usually, but this time she 
allowed her daughter to show herself off, to make all 
the display she wished. “Yes,” the girl repeated, 
“there is a person whom I love; it is you! And I 
shall love Monsieur de Barrois, if you think best. 
Marquise de Barrois — that sounds well, certainly ; but 
first we must be sure that Monsieur le marquis would 
make a good son-in-law! Julie will be jealous, mamma; 
she cannot endure to have anybody seem to prefer me ! ” 
The same words that she had used the preceding day 
to define her mother’s feelings toward herself recurred 
to her. On one point, the conviction that she was sur- 
rounded by universal envy, this girl, so instinctively arti- 
ficial, was sincere. “ But,” she asked, “ are you not going 
to tell me who wrote you about Monsieur de Barrois?” 

“That is my secret,” the mother said; “ only I wanted 
to question you before I replied.” 

“Well,” Jeanne said, “you know all. I am going to 
write to Julie,” she added; “may I mention it to her?” 

“By no means,” replied the mother. 

“I understand,” said Jeanne. “Besides, I have 
enough to write about. I have already done Pompeii 
in my journal. I only have to copy the pages for her, 
making some little changes. I shall hear no more, I 
hope, about her tiresome Feria at Seville last year! 
Oh, say, mamma, if I am to be married soon, they 
could put diamonds on the bars of the coral necklace. 
That would be so much better.” 


ATTITUDES 


203 


This last remark was followed by a silence, and then 
the sound of a door shutting, which made Lucien know 
that Jeanne had left the salon; and almost immediately 
Madame Izelin came to raise the portiere behind which 
he had been concealed. The mother’s eyes were even 
more troubled than usual. He could have discerned in 
them, if he had had the strength to reflect, a pity for 
himself and a regret for what she had just ventured to 
do; for, whatever were the faults, or even the vices, 
of her daughter’s character, she was her daughter, and 
the other, the man whom she had resolved thus to cure 
of his illusion, was a stranger. But the lover, at this 
moment, saw, felt, but one thing — the girl whom he 
loved did not love him. All the earlier part of the 
conversation had been very painful to him, proving as 
it did that Jeanne had simply tricked him the day 
before in representing herself as a victim of her mother’s 
envy. It had been very painful to him that their visit 
to Pompeii, which he had wished to keep forever sacred 
in his thoughts for her sake, had been to her only an 
epistolary theme, to be used to astonish a cousin. But 
how easily he would have pardoned these failures of 
feeling if she had answered differently when her mother 
questioned her as to the marquis de Barrois! It was 
this proof, unanswerable, definitive, of her indifference 
toward himself, that he could not endure! He said 
very softly to Madame Izelin: “You were right, ma- 
dame. There is nothing more for me to do in Naples. 


204 


ATTITUDES 


I shall leave to-night.” He bowed to her silently, and, 
before she could find a word to say, he was gone. 

She remained for some minutes motionless j then, 
abruptly, without stopping to put on her bonnet, she 
rushed to the door and down the stairs, hoping to over- 
take him before he left the house. She felt a need of 
speaking to him again, of explaining to him more fully 
her motives in what she had done. All her scruples 
of the past months, ending in this strange and cruel 
scene, vanished from her thought in presence of the 
distress that she had read upon the young man’s face. 
She reached the hall, at the foot of the stairs, only as 
he was just going out of the hotel door. Twice she 
called him, but he did not hear; or, perhaps, he was 
unwilling to return. Then, when the portier came to 
ask if she would like to have the boy run after ce mon- 
sieur frangaiSf and ask him to come back, Madame 
Izelin suddenly woke up to realities. She said, “No, 
it is not worth while ; ” and went upstairs to shut her- 
self into her own room and weep. She had perhaps 
saved Lucien Salvan from a marriage which would 
have rendered him unhappy, but she had lost in him 
the person who, of all others, would have been dearest 
to her as a son. 

Thus she had been sitting, crying, in her own room, 
for fifteen minutes, when she heard her daughter call 
to her from the salon. Collecting all her strength she 
called back, louder than was necessary, that the loud 


ATTITUDES 


205 


tone of her voice might conceal its emotion, “I am 
coming directly,’^ and bathed her eyes that the girl 
might not see the traces of tears. For years the tricks 
of word and manner that Jeanne employed to commis- 
erate her mother’s sadness or indispositions had been 
particularly painful to the latter. At the present 
moment such factitiousness was physically unendur- 
able. But this trial was spared her. Jeanne was too 
much occupied with herself to observe her mother’s 
face. She had brought in her letter, and was so pleased 
with it herself that she wished Madame Izelin to read 
it, and held it out to her, saying: — 

Here is my letter to Julie. See what you think of it.” 

The mother took the sheet of paper covered with 
its large, stylish handwriting, in which a graphologist 
would have discovered an arid and capricious nature by 
the letters without down- or up-strokes, all equally 
heavy, and by the ^’s crossed at the top. It consisted 
of a series of sentences upon Pompeii, very adroitly 
borrowed from the conversation of the preceding day 
with Lucien. She recognized the young man’s own 
words, her words, a word from the guide-book even — 
the whole giving the idea of a nature so fine, so acces- 
sible to art! Sal van’s name, of course, was not men- 
tioned. Before this little masterpiece of artifice, the 
mother’s melancholy redoubled. She said to herself, 
“I did well;” and to her daughter she said: “Your 
letter is admirable. It is very prettily written.” 


206 


ATTITUDES 


“I thought you would not dislike it,” said the girl, 
who could not grasp the secret sarcasm of the mother’s 
phrase; wrote it with feeling. That is the only 
kind of letter that I like. That is what I love so much 
in Italy. Everything appeals to one’s heart here.” 

“If he had read this letter, and if he had seen her 
like this,” the mother thought, remembering the scene 
of the past hour, “ he would believe her ! ” And again 
she said to herself, “I did well.” 


Florence, May, 1901. 


Ill 

GRATITUDE 



] ■■ 




I 




GRATITUDE 


I 

The incident I am about to relate was told me in 
London, last July, by one of my American friends, 
Mr. John W. Kerley of Syracuse (N.Y.). It seemed 
to me something very unusual, and I wrote it out at 
once, as I am accustomed to do in the case of any story 
that I hear which seems to me to contain somewhat of 
human truth. 

Even less exceptional, the incident still would have 
interested me because of the narrator. Mr. John Ker- 
ley — Jack Kerley, as he is familiarly called — is a 
peculiarly representative type of a certain disposition 
of mind which is very American and is recognizable, 
in a less degree, in many of his fellow-countrymen 
resident in Europe. Briefly stated, it is this: Jack 
Kerley adores his own country and cannot endure to 
live in it; he despises Europe and can live nowhere 
else. There is another point of resemblance between 
himself and his compatriots : he is a man of no particu- 
lar age. His thin and shaven face, reflned in features 
209 


210 


GEATITUDE 


and energetic in general aspect, might as well be fifty as 
forty-five. He has that singularly sallow complexion, 
often seen in America, which indicates a bilious heredity 
from past generations of whiskey-drinkers rather than 
wine-drinkers. Colouring like this, saturated, as it 
were, with bile, has never had the freshness of youth; 
and, on the other hand, neither does it show the ad- 
vance of age, so little can the deterioration of the blood 
be detected in it. In the case of Kerley this grayish 
face is lighted up by two blue eyes, rendered bluer still 
by contrast, in which shines out all the determination 
of a true son of the Stars and Stripes. He has that 
thin-lipped and bitter mouth, so often seen in America, 
which shows a shuddering disgust, an excess of nervous 
susceptibility and an excess of effort, too much reflec- 
tion, and too much will. When one has been in New 
York, and has known a great many Americans, he 
recognizes in that bitterness of the smile, a sign of the 
moral dyspepsia by which they are so often attacked — 
which is, in itself, only a form whereby physical 
dyspepsia makes itself felt. This is really Kerley’s 
malady; but he knows it. Nothing makes him happy; 
he acknowledges this, and gives very good reasons for 
it. He is very American, also, in his overstrained 
conscience. I can hear him now saying to me, as he 
did when we first met, some ten years ago, in England, 
during a Saturday-to-Monday visit at a charming 
country-house in Surrey: — 


GKATITUDE 


211 


“You have a liking for a cosmopolitan life. You 
make a mistake there. I have led that kind of a life. 
I’m living it now. There is nothing in it, I assure 
you. To begin with, it is not being honest. We have 
not the right to spend in a foreign land the money that 
comes to us from our own country. Look at me, now. 
My clothes, my rooms, my books, everything that I 
have, is paid for by checks on a bank in Syracuse, 
my native place, a city — that you probably never heard 
of — in the state of New York. Its population is only 
about eighty thousand. Where does the money come 
from that I have on deposit in that bank? It is rents 
from blocks of houses that my father built with Syra- 
cuse material and Syracuse labour; and these houses 
are valuable only because they are of use to people in 
Syracuse, whose industry earns the money to pay me 
these rents. Every time I sign a check for my tailor 
or my boot-maker in London, it is the same as taking 
American labour and giving it to these Englishmen. 
It is not a good citizen who does that! All cosmo- 
politans would say the same if they had any heart.” 

“But if you feel like this, why don’t you go back 
to America?” I asked. 

“Why don’t I?” he said. “It’s because my father 
had the unlucky idea of sending me ‘across the ocean,’ 
as we say in America, under the pretext of having me 
learn foreign languages, while I was still very young. 
Two years in France, two in Germany, three in Eng- 


212 


GRATITUDE 


land — seven years, in which I was in the States only 
during my vacations. My father died, and as soon as 
I was my own master I completed the damage by going 
to live in Italy. Do you know America? You don’t? 
Well, when you go there you will understand just as 
soon as you touch New York, just in going from the 
wooden pier to the hotel, that to live in America a 
man must work. Everybody works. There is no room 
for a dilettante, an amateur, an idler, like me! Ah! 
if I had sons, I swear to you I wouldn’t bring them up 
in a way to make them strangers in their own country. 
I’d put their trolley on the American wire.” 

I did not know how truly American his metaphor 
was until I had, acting upon his advice, visited those 
cities where the whiz and gong of the trolley-car mingle 
at every instant with the common sounds of life. 

^^In America,” he continued, ‘‘all is rough, but so 
young; incomplete, but so full of life; incoherent, but 
so vigorous! Everywhere one breathes the future and 
its fruitful energies. Here, all is polished, but effete; 
orderly, but feeble; finished, but impoverished. All 
belongs to the past; I do, myself. This is the infirmity 
I have contracted in Europe — a love of the past, a 
need of it. Look there,” he added, pointing to the 
castle whose guests we were for forty-eight hours, its 
red-brick structure, contemporary with the Tudors, ap- 
pearing through the trees, centuries old, of the park 
in which we were walking, “that is what I love now 


GRATITUDE 


213 


— all this stage-setting behind which duration im- 
presses one. And this is absurd; for it is a duration 
in which I have no share. Our role as Americans is 
to boycott the Old World. We must be, ourselves, 
ancestors ; we are to be the past of a grander America. 
All of us who do not conform to this programme are 
like me — we have made a failure of our lives.’’ 

When an American of the better kind, as this man 
was, criticises himself with such lucidity, be assured 
that he does it to anticipate what you may say and 
forestall your criticism. This is one of the thousand 
signs whereby appears that extraordinary self-love tor- 
menting this hyper-sensitive race, which seems, at the 
same moment and with equal excess, to believe in it- 
self and to doubt itself. These observations — and 
others like them which this very clever Jack Kerley 
has made to me since — all derive from the extreme 
acuteness with which he perceives the secret weakness 
of his broad culture. To say the whole thing in a 
single word — a word somewhat offensive, yet perfectly 
accurate — Kerley is but a variety of the American 
anglomaniac, the most subtle, the most delicate variety, 
but, all the same, an anglomaniac, who has grafted 
upon his own Yankee nature the tastes and habits and 
ideas of a refined and art-loving Englishman. Among 
other things, he has taken on the passion of such an 
Englishman for the Italy which preceded the sixteenth 
century; and his house in Hans Place contains a real 


214 


GRATITUDE 


quattrocentist museum, which would enrapture any 
late surviving pre-Raphaelites. It is here that the 
imitator in him comes to view. He realizes an ideal, 
which prevailed at the time he entered upon British 
life noWf when this ideal is passing away. But that 
which will never pass away is the beauty of the tondo 
of Filippino Lippi, which he discovered in some little 
Tuscan city; and the fineness of the mosaics of Fra 
Giovanni da Verona in the two choir-stalls of Monte 
Oliveto Maggiore, which he had the opportunity to 
buy; and the purity of style of thirty other paintings, 
terra-cottas, wood-carvings, bits of marble, which make 
his salon and his library the most charming of envi- 
ronments wherein to entertain at tea duchesses of 
aesthetic tinge. Mr. John W. Kerley is not only an 
enthusiast about Italian bibelots, he is also a super- 
numerary in that composite troupe which, in England, 
gravitates toward the peerage. You will observe his 
name, during the season, at all the week’s end parties 
mentioned in the journals; his autumn is passed in 
visits at the most exclusive country-houses; and his 
winter is spent from villa to villa between Cannes and 
Florence, without taking into the account that no per- 
son of note in the arts, in politics, or in literature, 
arrives in London but Kerley is among the first to 
make his acquaintance. 

To associate the whole year through, however, and 
that on terms of intimacy, with very noble, very rich. 


GRATITUDE 


215 


and very famous people when one’s own name is merely 
Mr. John W. Kerley and one’s whole fortune does 
not much exceed two hundred thousand dollars, is of 
necessity to suffer a little in that reserve of legitimate 
pride which demands that all intimacy presuppose 
equality. With a weak-souled person these petty 
stings cause envy. The shy soul is made misanthropic 
by them. Jack Kerley is too refined to feel envy, and 
he is too fond of society to be content with solitude. 
And so he continues to lead this aristocratic life, with 
its endless small vexations, seeking all the time to 
add to his little gallery, so that, in one respect at 
least, he can take precedence; and he indulges in 
auto-irony : — 

“I have only one claim to distinction,” he will often 
say, “but I have that, without dispute. I am the 
American who is not a millionnaire — the only one in 
Europe.” 

This quite relative poverty of his is a point in regard 
to which I habitually tease him; and it was exactly 
this which led to his telling me the story I proposed 
to myself to relate without any sort of commentary 
upon it, and then was led to make a sketch of the man 
himself. I see him now, as he was that afternoon, in 
July last, when he related to me this incident; and I 
could fix the exact date of it. It was two days after 
the auction at Christie’s of the series of studies left 
by the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The papers had 


216 


GRATITUDE 


published details of the sale, the bids being marked by 
that extravagance which these phlegmatic Englishmen 
carry into their infatuations. I called for Kerley, at 
about four o’clock, that we might go together to a 
house in Grosvenor Square to hear some Norwegian 
music, played by a Polish pianist, at the residence of 
a Scottish lady, the affair being in honour of a cele- 
brated Austrian statesman, introduced in London so- 
ciety by a Portuguese diplomat. O cosmopolis! I 
found my man in his library; he was alone, was 
dressed to go out, and was awaiting me. He did not 
perceive my entrance, so hypnotized was he, so to 
speak, before a frame placed upon an easel, where 
shone resplendent one of the aquarelles I had most 
admired at Christie’s two days before; the most 
precious, perhaps, of all those relics of the great 
painter for which men had been fighting with bank- 
notes. It represented one of the master’s favourite 
subjects, a “Marriage of Psyche.” In a mountainous 
landscape, wild and verdant as a valley in the High- 
lands, the bride advances, sad as a victim, attended by 
her companions, who scatter flowers with a slow ges- 
ture at once resigned and despairing. These tall, frail 
figures, draped in their long veils, seem like a funeral 
procession; and, in the supple build of the body, almost 
too tall, in the line of the dreamy profile, in the red- 
dish brown tone of the hair and eyes, they all have 
that grace so profoundly, so intensely, English that 


GRATITUDE 


217 


Burne-Jones has been able to disengage from the femi- 
nine type in his country. Yes, it was truly an artistic 
jewel, almost capable of supporting comparison with 
the marvels of Tuscan art which the self-styled “ poor ” 
American had been able to gather about him. I com- 
plimented him upon it at once, while laying my hand 
on his shoulder to notify him of my presence, and I 
began, somewhat mischievously: — 

“Well, well! You, even you, have let yourself be 
carried away! You have been as extravagant as any 
everyday millionnaire from New York or Chicago! And 
how well you have done! This is a masterpiece, this 
aquarelle ! ” 

“Is it not?” he said; and the habitual bitterness 
of his face seemed to melt, as it were, into a kind of 
ecstasy which quickly gave way to an expression of 
singular irony : “ I have not the wealth for such a pur- 
chase as this,” he said; “the few poor bibelots that I 
have here have only this merit, that I spent much 
marching and countermarching in obtaining them. I 
have at least this American virtue, if I have no other ; 
the taste for struggle, the love of fight. I have made 
a poor use of it, spending thirty years in collecting 
what a magnate of the mines or a petroleum king could 
acquire in a moment, merely by signing a check! No. 
I could not have made myself a present of this Burne- 
Jones. It was given to me yesterday; and in circum- 
stances so peculiar that, since yesterday, I have to 


218 


GRATITUDE 


look at it, as I was doing when you came in, I have 
to touch it, and handle it, to be convinced that I am 
not the sport of an illusion.” And, as he spoke, he 
took the aquarelle into his hands, testing its weight as 
he gazed at it; and again his face was transfigured by 
enthusiasm. “Well!” he said, as he replaced the 
picture and looked at his watch, “we have time to 
walk to Grosvenor Square across the park; will you 
do it? I should like to tell you how it happens that I 
have this treasure in my possession, here in this house 
in Hans Place, which, two days ago, by no means ex- 
pected such an adventure. That thing,” he said, “does 
great honour to the Old World; but the way in which 
it came to me does great honour, also, to the Hew; and 
you know, it makes no difference my not living with 
my compatriots, I love them, and I assure you they 
are worthy to be loved. Deep down in the American 
soul there is a strength of feeling that you never meet 
elsewhere; and, withal, an astonishing capacity of re- 
covery, of making a new start, while — ” 

He stopped, to spare my feelings; and I could see, 
flitting across his shaven lip, a vague smile of derision 
for European inferiorities. It did not occur to me 
to take offence at this. We Europeans can never put 
ourselves at the point of view which masses us all 
together in the unity of our continent. A time is com- 
ing, perhaps, when our posterity will consider us very 
unwise not to have divined that it is, after all, the 
truth — a terrible, a formidable, truth. 


GRATITUDE 


219 


Meanwhile, I was fully avenged for the disdain of 
this son of the New World by the simple fact that he 
was here in a London street, and was so glad to be 
here, rather than walking in Broadway or Fifth Ave- 
nue. We had passed through Sloane Street and then 
Piccadilly, and entered the park by the Albert Gate; 
and now, under the beautiful soft gray sky of a warm 
summer afternoon, in this fresh scenery of verdure 
and of water, we could see all aristocratic and luxuri- 
ous England defile before us. Private carriages, em- 
blazoned, varnished, cushioned, followed one another, 
crossed each other, were crowded together, the tall, 
powdered coachman sitting very straight upon his box, 
the minute tiger beside him. Softly balanced on the 
C-springs were women adorned with necklaces of pearls 
and diamonds as if for a ball, in toilets at once light 
and of the most dazzling splendour. Some were very 
arrogant and hard looking ; but, also, how gracious were 
the gracious ones, and how beautiful the beauties, with 
that air of health in their elegance! My companion 
bowed to this one and to that one; and a childish 
vanity lighted his brow and eyes when a ducal coronet 
adorned the landau whence a familiar nod and cordial 
smile descended upon him. Meanwhile, he was relat- 
ing to me the promised story, in which the role he 
had played was all impregnated with the spirit of 
Yankee puritanism; and I felt in the tone of his voice 
that this dilettante, a trifle snobbish, too, was, under 


220 


GRATITUDE 


all and above all, this especially : a Puritan, scrupulous 
and sensitive, in the depths of whose soul burned un- 
ceasingly the moral and civic flame of the passengers 
on the Mayflower, 


II 

“It was exactly twelve years ago,” he began. “I 
was returning from Italy and had stopped at Monte 
Carlo to see some friends. You do not perceive any rela- 
tion between that not very ideal spot and the ^ Psyche ’ 
of Burne-Jones? Wait till the story is told. I was 
to spend a week in that abominable place, which has 
only one good thing about it; but it has that — those 
wonderful terraced gardens. I have often been sur- 
prised, by the way, that some essayist has not written 
a page on the palm trees of those terraces. They en- 
noble the immoral compost which is heaped up at 
their feet, as the work of a degraded artist — a Byron, 
an Edgar Poe, a Baudelaire, a Verlaine — ennobles the 
vices from which it springs. I give you this compari- 
son just as it presented itself to my mind while I was 
walking in those alleys with that view before me, one 
of the finest in the world! I was enjoying it much, 
but, as usual, with a secret remorse. I attended the 
concerts, which are excellent, and you know whether I 
love music; and this pleasure also caused me remorse. 
Behind this orchestra, as behind these groups of trees 


GRATITUDE 


221 


and flowers, I saw too distinctly the detestable money 
of the gaming table. I employed, to tranquillize my 
scruples in some degree, a procedure, not original with 
me, which I recommend to you. I have it from a Bos- 
ton woman, devout, and music-mad. It consists in 
estimating as nearly as possible what sum of money 
represents, for each visitor, the keeping up of these 
gardens and this theatre, and then systematically losing 
that sum at the tables. Try it, when next you are 
there, and you will find your conscience much relieved. 

“ One evening, then, I was at the Casino for the pur- 
pose of paying this new kind of tithe — that is to 
say, I amused myself with playing, having the fixed 
intention of leaving the table as soon as the croupier^ s 
rake should have drawn in the amount which I had 
decided to lose; but it will not surprise you that, 
having decided to lose, I gained instead, at first. 
I had taken out of my porte-monnaie a hundred-franc 
note. It was shortly transformed into some fifteen 
hundred-franc gold pieces, and I now amused my- 
self by throwing these down by handfuls upon the 
green cloth until the luck should turn — it always does 
turn! I ended by losing all that I had won except ten 
louis. I risked these two last pieces upon the black 
— we were playing trente et quarante — which had just 
won thirteen consecutive times. It won a fourteenth 
time. I was about to pick up my new gains, almost 
regretfully, and had leaned forward in this intention 


222 


GRATITUDE 


over the shoulder of the seated player behind whom I 
stood, when I saw opposite me a hand extend itself 
and grasp the four gold pieces. I looked at the thief 
who had just ventured this astonishing act, and who 
was a very young man, and, involuntarily, — decided to 
lose though I was, — so strong in us is the instinct of 
ownership, I cried out: — 

“‘But, sir, those twenty louis are mine! ^ I repeated 
it, ‘They are mine! ’ And, as I had instinctively called 
out in a loud voice, one of the players, who had chanced 
to notice me laying down the gold pieces, confirmed 
what I had said: — 

“‘Those twenty louis certainly belonged to this gen- 
tleman,’ he said, addressing the croupier, who stopped 
paying the bank’s losses to ask: — 

“‘Who is the person who took up those twenty 
louis?’ and, addressing me, ‘Should you recognize 
him? ’ 

“‘Certainly,’ I replied, and I was just going to point 
to the spot where my thief had stood half a minute 
before; but he was no longer there! Though questions 
and answers had passed with the greatest rapidity, 
and I had but for a moment turned my eyes toward 
the croupier, that moment had sufficed for the young 
man to disappear and be lost in the crowd, which stood 
deep around the table. I glanced rapidly over this 
crowd, saying, as I did so, ‘But he was there! ’ And, 
at the instant, surprise choked my voice. I had just 


GRATITUDE 


223 


recognized him standing close beside me. Having 
committed the theft and finding himself on the point 
of being seized, he had slipped around the table, in 
some inconceivable way, and here he was, in the place 
where it was most unlikely that he would be, at the 
very elbow of the man whom he had robbed. My 
amazement at seeing him close to me was now in- 
creased by something even more unexpected : I felt the 
same hand, which just before had so rapidly snatched 
up my four gold pieces, now grasp me by the arm and 
hold it tight in a grip that trembled. Our eyes had 
met. He had become aware that I recognized him, 
and he had made this sudden movement in order to 
stop me if I had meant to strike him. I have told you 
that he was a very young man. In an instant^s flash, 
with that inconceivable rapidity of sensations which 
accompanies a crisis like this, I read in his pallid face 
a desperate entreaty; and I also divined that he was, 
like myself, an American. By what sign did I know 
this? I shall not try to explain it to you. Nor shall 
I try to explain the irresistible pity for the suffering 
stamped upon this face, still so young, which over- 
mastered me to such a degree that I felt myself incapable 
of denouncing him — which was, however, my duty in 
the case. It is always a duty to have a thief arrested, 
whoever or wherever he is ! Instead of that, however, I 
can hear now how I blundered out to the croupier: ‘I 
shall have to lose it. I ought to have kept a better 


224 


GRATITUDE 


watch. I don’t see him now. ’ ‘ Then you make no 

further claim?’ the croupier asked; and I replied that 
I made no further claim. 

‘‘When I said these words, the hand upon my arm 
relaxed its grasp; and what happened next on my part 
I can explain even less than my previous conduct. I 
had yielded just before, as I tell you, to an emotion of 
pity, very spontaneous and really very excusable, for 
a poor young fellow whose imprudent distress showed 
plainly that he was not hardened in crime. It followed 
naturally, you know, that I should now complete my 
charitable act by talking with him and seeking to know 
what motives were hidden behind this theft, which 
might even, perhaps, excuse it. Weill I did nothing 
of the kind. I had no sooner let the words fall, that 
secured impunity to that young man, than I was ashamed 
of my leniency as of the most culpable weakness, as of 
complicity, I will even say, though I had practised it 
to my own detriment. I no longer felt, in respect to 
him whom, however, I had just saved from a very seri- 
ous peril, anything but a kind of wrathful indignation ; 
and as, after releasing my arm, he lingered near me, 
evidently upset and wishing, but not daring, to speak 
to me, I turned abruptly toward him and, in a low 
voice, but with the most contemptuous and insulting 
tone, I said to him, in English, ‘Get away, get away, 
you damned rascal ! ’ 

“He made no reply. The blood rushed to his face. 


GRATITUDE 


225 


just now so pallid. His lips quivered, as if trying in 
vain to speak. His eyes filled with tears. He seemed 
to hesitate a moment, then bending his head under the 
disgrace, he obeyed my brutal injunction, and I saw 
him cleave a path through the rows of spectators 
crowded around the table, and disappear — on his way 
to what new act of villany, to what crimes, perhaps, 
or to what repentance? His shameless action, on the 
one hand, and on the other, his strange attitude; the 
impudence of the theft, followed by his emotion at my 
insulting words, gave scope to all sorts of conjectures. 
I felt this so deeply that I now wanted to follow him ; 
and I, in turn, pushed through the crowd, seeking to 
find him and to learn his story. It was labour lost. 
He had disappeared completely. 

‘^Did you ever have the singular feeling of having 
been any one’s fate — I mean to say, of having met a 
man, at some decisive moment of his life, and of hav- 
ing, by some act of yours, insignificant in itself, thrown 
the switch for him to one track or another? If you 
never have, I shall hardly be able to make you under- 
stand the disproportionate place that this Casino epi- 
sode began to occupy in my mind. No sooner had I 
left the hall than the distressed face of the young thief 
began haunting me with singular force. Do you know 
this thing — the retrospective scrutiny of a face that 
has been seen briefly, in circumstances too striking to 
be forgotten, and whose secret we mentally strive to 


226 


GRATITUDE 


decipher, but always without success? As a result of 
what adventures had this child — for he was really a 
child, one of those overgrown boys that one often sees 
in America — how had he come to be guilty of this 
contemptible theft? Why had he chosen me, specially, 
as his victim? Had he recognized me, as I had him, 
as being an American, and counted on some indulgence, 
on the part of a compatriot, in case of detection and 
arrest? And again, but this time as a matter of re- 
flection, I relapsed into that duality of contradictory 
feelings which had made me, at the table, first spare 
him, then speak to him so brutally. I began asking 
myself whether I had done well in following these two 
impulses; and now an impression began to weigh upon 
me, unjustified, illogical, and yet irresistible: what if 
this theft had been the young man’s first criminal act, 
what if that moment in his life had been one of those 
solemn instants when a whole destiny is decided? I 
ought to have ascertained this before speaking to him 
as I did. I recalled the supplicating look he had 
lifted to me, and I now read an appeal in it that I had 
not at the moment understood. What appeal? An 
entreaty not to despise him because of his fault, to talk 
with him, to listen to him, to assist him. Suppose that 
he had stolen for some one else : for a sick mother, for 
an infirm father? Suppose he were merely a lover, and 
had stolen for the woman’s sake? Twenty hypotheses 
crowded into my mind, and by turns I accepted and 


GRATITUDE 


227 


rejected each. I considered myself foolish even to form 
them ; and all the time this imploring face came before 
my memory, and I felt a kind of remorse at having 
made no other answer to it than that rough apostrophe. 
It was somewhat as if, crossing the open country by 
night, I had heard some one cry, ‘Help! help!’ and I 
had passed on without looking round. I say again, I 
cannot explain the strange impression that this chance 
meeting left upon me. It chanced that this impres- 
sion did correspond to a reality, and my two impulsive 
movements — first my pity, then my anger — were des- 
tined to have a decisive influence upon the destiny of 
this unknown person. You will think what you please 
of it. We Americans, 'v^ho pass for practical men, and 
who are so when we need to be, are also convinced 
spiritualists, believing, with Hamlet, that there are more 
things in the world than our philosophy can explain. I 
am, accordingly, persuaded that, by a phenomenon of 
second sight, I divined this influence. But no matter 
about that; it has no connection with the story of the 
aquarelle — at which I have now arrived. 

“We must avoid exaggeration. To quote Hamlet to 
you once more, here is my motto ‘This above all, to 
thine own self be true.’ And so, I am bound to tell 
you that though I never entirely forgot the young 
thief of Monte Carlo, the impression was besetting 
only during the first few days after this episode. Then 
I ceased to think of it, except intermittently; and cer- 


228 


GRATITUDE 


tainly, I was not thinking of it in any way, day before 
yesterday, at Christie’s, while I followed the auction 
of poor Burne-Jones’s drawings. I had attended the sale 
in the hope that some one of these marvels might not 
exceed the sum which my very limited means permit 
me to devote to a whim. It really was, however, some- 
thing more than a whim which made me desire to have 
a relic of this great painter. I loved him personally 
so much; and, as it happens, I had nothing from his 
hand. While the bidders wrangled over these debris 
of the purest artist of our time, I recalled in memory 
my visits to his house, in the remotest part of Ken- 
sington, and that salon which had been Richardson’s, 
where he used to walk about among the furniture of 
green lacquer on a background of the same shade. 
With his light step, his easy gesture, his eyes the 
colour of water, his transparent complexion, the fleeci- 
ness of his light beard, he suggested an inevitable 
comparison with some legendary personage such as he 
delighted to paint, some gentle, shy Undine wandering 
through the silent depths of a sea-green grotto. Alas ! 
I shall never again ring at the door of ‘The Grange’; 
and this is why regret for the noble, dead master was 
so strong in me that the whim to have a relic of him 
became a real need, and I began to bid on this aquarelle 
of the “Psyche,” which, suddenly, from forty guineas 
leaped to eighty, to a hundred, two hundred, a thou- 
sand. It was I who called out this sum to the auc- 


GRATITUDE 


229 


tioneer — I, who had always had a horror of objects of 
art obtained by brute force of money, and for whom 
to collect is to discover a picture, a statue, a wood- 
carving, and to frequent it, to lay siege to it, to pay 
court to it, to win it by a lover’s ardour, a diplomat’s 
finesse, a devotee’s patience! I spent six years in 
gaining my Filippino Lippi, which I found in a city 
near Lucca. 

‘‘A thousand guineas! And already the aquarelle 
had gone up to eleven hundred. This sum recalled me 
from my madness, and, letting the auction take its 
course, I was preparing to go away, lest I should suc- 
cumb to some new temptation. As I turned round I 
perceived, bent upon me fixedly, two eyes, which caused 
me at once to stop short. I recognized the look, but 
not the man. Then, suddenly, came an illuminating 
fiash. It was the thief of Monte Carlo, twelve years 
older, with broader shoulders, a face grown fuller, but 
too much like himself in the outline of the features, 
and a certain strong and daring expression of the face, 
for a mistake to be possible. He was dressed with an 
extreme care, which seemed to tell of wealth. To meet 
him again in this way, after so many years, was so 
stimulating to my curiosity that I came very near 
speaking to him. Then I observed that he ceased to 
look at me, and went nearer to the auctioneer’s plat- 
form; and a doubt seized me as to the fact of identity. 
Meanwhile, the auction continued, and I thought that 


230 


GRATITUDE 


I noticed my former thief to be a bidder for the aqua- 
relle. Two thousand two hundred guineas, and sold! 
A name was given, which I shall ask you not to try 
to learn at Christie’s, and I shall not tell you myself. 
It is the name of one of the men best known as having 
obtained a colossal fortune in Cape mines. The idea 
that my unknown boy of the gaming-house and this 
potentate of African ^claims ’ could be one and the 
same, appeared to me so unlikely that I did not even 
seek to verify it. I determined to think of nothing ex- 
cept the Burne-Jones that I had lost, and left the auc- 
tion room to avoid the temptation, not of disputing one 
of the painter’s masterpieces with some mine owner 
but of accosting the man himself and asking him if it 
were really he who once stole sixteen pounds from me 
at Monte Carlo, and whom I so brutally insulted after- 
ward without his finding a word to say in reply. You 
will see that these are not questions to be asked.” 

“ And it was he? ” I asked, as Kerley stopped speaking. 

“ It was he. How he came to be there at Christie’s, 
at my side, during the sale, I never knew; whether it 
was by chance, or whether he had seen me in the street 
and followed me in. How he learned my name and 
address, likewise, I do not know. What I do know 
is, that yesterday evening, returning from the opera, 
I found in my house Burne-Jones’s aquarelle, for which 
I had bid in vain, with a note which I want to show 
you. All America is in it,” and taking from his over- 


GRATITUDE 


231 


coat pocket a letter with type-written address, he 
read as follows: — 

‘‘Dear Sir: You have doubtless forgotten a little 
debt contracted toward you twelve years ago, by a 
young gentleman who himself has not forgotten it. 
Thanks to that money and to the lesson that accom- 
panied it, that young man has been able, by his own 
industry, to become what he now is. It would be too 
long a story to tell you how. But let me say this : that 
young man was then at Monte Carlo literally without 
a penny, after having gone thither with money which 
was not his own. The manner in which you dealt with 
him, pardoning him a very serious fault, and making 
him feel how serious it was, made such a revolution in 
him that he left that night for London, determined to 
reconstruct his life by labour, and begin by earning 
enough to pay an earlier debt — that which had enabled 
him to go to that detestable gaming-house. This first 
debt he paid. Since then he has worked for himself, 
and God has favoured him above his deserts. 

“In his prosperity he has always regretted knowing 
nothing of you — neither who you were nor where you 
lived, that he might pay his second debt, the one which 
he owed to you. 

“Circumstances to-day permitting him to fulfil this 
wish, you will permit, dear sir, a fellow-countryman 
to beg you to accept this picture which you desired to 


232 


GRATITUDE 


buy. I owe you much more than that, since without 
your extreme goodness toward me at a certain moment, 
my destiny would have been entirely different from 
what it has been. I will add that I have kept for 
twelve years an exact account of the sum which is due 
you. I have calculated it to within a hundred francs 
since my departure, first for the Colorado mines, and 
then for those of the Cape, regarding you as having 
an interest of j-Jr ^7 affairs. My capital amounted 
to exactly a hundred and two times the eighty dollars 
that you allowed me to keep. But you doubtless would 
see objections to this adjustment. I hope that you will 
see none to keeping this aquarelle. 

“ And believe me 

‘‘Very faithfully yours, 

i( 

“ I omit the signature. There is the whole life of a 
man in that letter, you know — the life of a true man. 
When you are amazed, you people this side of the 
water, at our enterprise, at what we call our pluck, 
you do not understand that almost every one of us has 
some special idea in his soul which supports him. In 
the case of this man, it was repentance for his mo- 
mentary errors. When I read his letter my first idea 
was to find out his address and send the picture back. 
Then I re-read it, and I began to feel that I ought to 
accept it, and all the more since I only hold it in trust. 


GRATITUDE 


233 


Years ago I made my will, and I consider my collection 
as not my own property. I have left it to my city — 
that Syracuse in which I shall never have lived. But 1 
shall be there after I am dead, and that is one way of 
being a good citizen, don’t you think so?” 


CosTABELLE, Maich, 1899. 


‘ < 




I 


y 




■ i- 




THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


THREE INCIDENTS OF 
WAR 


The three stories that follow, to which I have given 
the collective title of “Incidents of War,’’ although 
one of them deals only with an episode of the Grand 
Manoeuvres, have been related to me by officers. I 
have carefully indicated the attendant circumstances, 
in order to give these conversational narratives their 
proper frame, as I have sought to keep their true 
flavour. It has seemed to me that these anecdotes are, 
in a way, each other’s complement, and hence that 
they may appropriately follow each other. The second 
is merely picturesque, but perhaps in the first and last 
may be found something of that emotional strength 
which caused Joseph de Maistre to say, in a famous 
page of the Soir^esy that the soldier’s functions are 
connected with a great law of the spiritual world. 

I 

HIS boyhood’s friend 

This story was told me, not long before his death, by 
the lamented Commandant Percheux, the witty, one- 
237 


238 


THUEE INCIDENTS OE WAR 


armed officer whom habitues of the club of the rue 
Boissy d’Anglas have surely not forgotten. It scarcely 
resembles the somewhat too free and caustic talk of 
the old soldier who had become a hardened Parisian. 
Perhaps it does him more honour. I, at least, found 
it very touching when he related it to me — far away 
from Paris, it is true j far from that corner at the club 
where he was wont to hold court between the hours of 
five and seven. 

It was in his native village, on a rocky ledge in the 
little park adjacent to his paternal mansion, that he 
confided this incident to me, his mood softened, doubt- 
less, by the place and by the memory — poignant, indeed 
— which an inscription cut in this rock had awakened 
in his mind. The name of the village will be familiar 
to the commandant’s friends: it is a picturesque little 
place, called Saint-Sauves, in Auvergne, whither I had 
gone — from La Bourboule, where I was taking the 
waters — to pay a visit to the retired officer. The in- 
scription, rudely cut with a knife, consisted of the 
German word OsterU) which means Easter, and a date, 
1858. Imagine below this ledge a green, romantic val- 
ley, in whose depths a brook meanders which, later, be- 
comes the river Dordogne. At the left the thatched roofs 
of the village are grouped in the distance, and, a few 
steps from us, between the lustrous leaves of the wal- 
nut trees, the yellow silhouette of an ancient house 
appears, with a “priest’s garden” in front of it, very 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


239 


small, and brilliant with sunflowers and hollyhocks. 
Above all this unfurl a beautiful French summer sky, 
warm and blue, and you will not greatly wonder that 
this ensemble of sweet, familiar things should have 
plucked Percheux from his sarcastic mood, and that 
this disabled soldier, who scarcely ever showed feel- 
ing, should for once have thought aloud in another’s 
presence. 

There was a time,” he began, when I had inquired 
about the German word and the date, “ when I should 
not have answered you. It is true that at that time I 
should not have brought you to this spot. I could not 
even, in those days, come here myself, because of this 
inscription, to sit here on this rock, from which we 
have the finest view of all these mountains. It re- 
called to me memories that were too sad, and, specially, 
the mad act that cost me my arm and, with it, my 
career. But as one grows old he regrets it less if 
he has made a failure of his life. Besides, had I re- 
mained in the army, what would have been the advan- 
tage, I ask you, since the miserable men who now rule 
us have not made war, will not make it, cannot make 
it? This horrible thought that we have resigned as a 
nation, sometimes consoles me for having been obliged 
to lay aside the uniform. In short, I can now endure 
these memories. I sit here, and I see, as if it were 
yesterday, the Easter morning when these letters and 
this date were cut by a charming classmate of mine, a 


240 


THEEE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


German boy. He had come to pass the April holidays 
with me. At that period there was no Alsace and 
Lorraine between us and them; and we had no sus- 
picion that between them and us they saw always 
Jena. I am now perfectly sure that the father of Otto 
de Winkel — that was my comrade^s name — in send- 
ing him from Stettin to Versailles, to complete his 
knowledge of French, had in mind making of his son a 
good guide for uhlans in the future invasion for which 
they were already planning in Berlin. But if such 
were his father’s designs, Otto no more suspected them 
than I did. He certainly was the best and most sin- 
cere of all my schoolmates in the lyciey where my parents 
had placed me to fit for Saint-Cyr. I was myself, in 
some degree, a stranger at the school, coming as I did 
from this remote corner of Auvergne. It may have 
been that this feeling of being far from home which 
we both had was the secret reason of our mutual sym- 
pathy; or it may have been, on the other hand, the 
very dissimilarity of our characters that made the tie. 
Between friends, as you know, differences attach quite 
as often as resemblances do. I was then, just as I am 
now, a cross-grained sort of fellow, and Otto was the 
sweetest and most obliging of comrades. From my 
earliest youth I had, without any cause, moments of 
almost savage ill-temper, just as I have them now, 
with only too good reason, alas! Winkel, with his 
good-natured round face, chubby and rosy, whose large 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


241 


features betokened a rough, primitive race, was always 
laughing, with the good-natured laugh of a young colos- 
sus. He was very tall and awkward. I was under- 
sized and very adroit; with all this, we became such a 
good pair of friends that this visit here in the spring 
holidays was considered by me as the most precious 
Easter gift I could possibly receive — and by him in 
the same way. 

“ While I am talking with you I see him just as he 
looked the day after his delighted arrival ! Up to the 
last moment he had feared he might not obtain his 
father’s consent. He lay there on the rock where 
you are now; I had brought him here that he might 
admire the view. He was seized with one of those 
attacks of German sentimentalism concerning which 
we have since learned that it may be allied with every 
form of rapacity ; but at sixteen, even Monsieur de Bis- 
marck no doubt uttered, with tears in his voice, that 
word gemutJilichf by which those fellows over there ex- 
press everything — their vague feeling for nature and 
their full-blown satisfaction in being well off; their 
reveries and their beatified stupidity after a heavy 
meal; and, without any doubt, Otto was very honest 
and simple-minded in those days. In the depths of his 
eyes, so blue, laughed and dreamed the truest good- 
ness — a goodness somewhat crude, like the outlines 
of his broad face, a little stupid and clumsy, like the 
movements of his big limbs. He had at once, as his blue 


242 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


eyes roved over this landscape, uttered the inevitable 
sehr schon with a youthful enthusiasm which melted into 
romantic emotion. He turned and looked at me. He 
took my hand and, with tears in his voice and on his 
cheeks, he said to me: — 

Swear to me that we will be forever friends, my 
friend ! ’ 

“And notwithstanding his atrocious German accent 
— after two years in a French lyc4e — the clasp of his 
hand was so loyal, the affection emanating from his 
whole being was so warm, that I became as idiotically 
sentimental as he was; and I replied to him: H swear 
it to thee ! ’ with the same boyish solemnity. 

“Whereupon, to commemorate this oath of a new 
Patroclus and a new Achilles, he took a stout knife 
from his pocket, opened it, and using a heavy stone as 
a mallet to strike upon the handle, he began to cut 
into the rock this Ostern 1858 that you see there. 
After more than thirty-five years, I still hear the grat- 
ing of the blade upon the rock, the blows of the stone 
upon the handle, his breath, as he worked hard at his 
task, and his delighted laugh when the six letters and 
the four figures were legible ; and he said to me, look- 
ing at me with his candid eyes, the most triumphant 
^Voildb!^ that ever artist uttered before a masterpiece. 
How near it is, a boyish friendship, and yet how far ! ” 

“And you met, face to face, during the war?” I 
asked him, as he ceased speaking. I feared that he 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


243 


might suddenly interrupt this confidential strain by a 
return to his habitual mocking tone; and though the 
adventure that this story announced would be evidently 
of a commonplace and, as we say nowadays, sensational 
order, I desired to hear it from his own lips. I was to 
experience, once more, how many more shades reality 
has than the imagination dreams of. 

^‘It was not exactly that,” replied Percheux, “al- 
though we came very near it. But let us go more 
slowly. Between this year 1858, when we swore eter- 
nal friendship, and the war of 1870, when we risked 
meeting one another, revolver in hand, since he had 
become a Prussian officer and I a French officer, we 
had met scarcely more than once ; and, notwithstanding 
our solemn oath, we had, of course, ceased to exchange 
letters. It is the usual order in schoolboy friendships. 
We had met, this one time of which I speak, in one of 
the restaurants of the Exposition of 1867, each in the 
company of other comrades, with only time to recog- 
nize each other, tell each other our present profession, 
and exchange addresses. The following day I had 
found his card at my rooms. Some circumstance pre- 
vented my returning the visit at once, and when I went 
to see him at his hotel he had gone back to Germany. 

“I will acknowledge to you that in leaving for the 
army of the Khine with my dragoons — I was captain 
— I scarcely gave a thought to my former chum at 
Versailles and Saint-Sauves. He had, indeed, told 


244 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


me, at tlie time of our brief meeting, that he was in 
the service, but without indicating which branch; and 
I did not know but he might, for some reason or other, 
have resigned between the time of the Exposition and 
the war. And so I did not think of him at Forbach, 
or Rezonville, or Gravelotte, the first three battles in 
which my regiment took part. Nor had I thought of 
him that afternoon of August 31, which was the first 
of the two days’ fighting at Saint-Barbe. That was 
the last time I was able to use my sabre! I used it 
well, though, that afternoon! That was also the last 
genuine attempt that the Marshal made to break through 
the circle of investment shutting us up in Metz. The 
engagement had been late in beginning. Although as 
early as six in the morning we were in motion to cross 
from the left to the right bank of the Moselle, it was 
not until four o’clock that the guns opened fire; and at 
half-past seven we received the order to charge upon 
a body of cuirassiers and uhlans, who had thrown our 
first line into disorder and were bearing straight down 
upon our artillery, in a great plain lying in the corner 
between the road to Sarrebruck and that to Sarrelouis. 
We were hidden, when this order reached us, near the 
latter road, in the shelter of a little wood, in front of 
the village of Mey. Upon these horsemen, coming at 
full gallop and having no idea of our presence, we fell 
in flank; and an hour later there was nothing left of 
them. We held both roads, and if daylight had not 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


245 


failed us, we should have occupied Retonfey the same 
evening. We did indeed make an advance in that di- 
rection, but word came to us to fall back; and we 
returned to the point where the charge had been 
made, at the intersection of the two roads. 

“ This is what is called sleeping on the field of battle. 
It sounds well ; but, as a matter of fact, this triumph 
for us, who had had nothing since black coffee in the 
early morning, consisted in sleeping, supperless, in 
the open air, on ground soaked with the rain of two 
days before. My orderly, whose duty it was to follow 
me with a fresh horse and a supply of food, had judged 
it safer, when the first bullets began flying, to return 
to Metz, where, two days later, I found him. There 
was not a morsel to eat for any man, nor a truss of 
hay for the animals. I was only too lucky in having a 
cloak in which I could wrap myself; and I lay down 
upon the ground, while my horse was taken in charge 
by one of my dragoons — who fell asleep, sitting, with 
the animal’s bridle over his arm. I was not slow in 
following his example. The man who has not slept 
that kind of sleep has no idea what sleeping is. My 
slumber had been so profound that at daybreak, when 
I was awakened by the white light of dawn and the 
chill of the morning, it took me a full minute to become 
conscious where I was; and I perceived that we had 
been lying pell-mell among the dead whom we had 
sabred the evening before. My first impression on 


246 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


finding myself thus surrounded by these dead bodies 
was like a nightmare: they seemed to me immense, 
almost surpassing human stature; and these light- 
haired giants thus scattered over the ground, most of 
whom were in white tunics, yellow boots, cuirasses, 
and enormous helmets, sent through my veins the half- 
shiver of a fear that I had not experienced in charging 
them some hours before, and sabring my best. I got 
up, that I might shake off this nervous weakness, and 
began looking at these dead men. There were among 
them four officers, recognizable by their epaulettes. I 
approached one who lay face downward upon the 
ground, one hand ungloved, and on his wrist glittered 
one of those large gold ropes that the Kussian women 
sometimes make their lovers wear. The sight of this 
bracelet touched me. The idea came to me that if I 
searched the man’s pockets I might perhaps find some 
indication by which I could restore it to her to whom 
it belonged. I stooped, and at the first movement I 
made to turn the body over I recognized my schoolmate 
at Versailles, the boy who had been with me in the 
Easter holidays twelve years before — Otto de Winkel.” 

“What a moment!” I exclaimed; “it well accounts 
for your horror of this memory ! ” 

“But you are wrong,” he replied, shaking his old, 
whitened, soldierly head. “ It is not this memory that 
so long was a horror to me. There is developed in 
the soldier on a campaign a kind of fatalist philosophy. 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


247 


if I may so call it. Nothing astonishes him now; and 
death, particularly, is not to him that exceptional phe- 
nomenon which surprises one as something almost in- 
comprehensible. Absolutely unexpected though the 
chance was which had made me pass a night in pro- 
found sleep only a few yards away from the dead body 
of my boyhood’s friend, it did not seem to me anything 
extraordinary. Nor was it a very poignant emotion 
which filled my heart. ‘Your turn to-day, to-morrow 
mine;’ the Eomans had a proverb somewhat like that, 
do you remember? This was exactly the impression I 
felt in the presence of this dead man, whose attitude, 
as he lay, was peaceful rather than sad. I should lie 
thus, perhaps, to-morrow — this afternoon — in an hour 
from now! This idea which, it would seem, should 
have rendered my contemplation even more painful, 
made it, on the contrary, more tranquil — soothed it. 
Another idea came to me which, expressed in words, 
seems frightful: perhaps, in the m^Ue of the evening 
before, when I had struck at random and in the twi- 
light, it was my own sabre which, at some weak point 
of the cuirass, made the wound I was looking at, whence 
had flowed the blood with which the white cloth of the 
tunic was stained. I said that also to myself, and 
still, I did not cease to look at the wound and at the 
man who lay there dead. The memories of our com- 
mon past came over me at the same moment; and their 
contrast with the present was not bitter to me as you 


248 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


would suppose. It was an indescribable feeling of ac- 
ceptance, of curiosity, and of pity — to which I should 
have done better not to abandon myself. You will see 
why. 

“During the moments that I had passed, thus hyp- 
notized in the presence of the dead, my men were 
wakening all around me. And abruptly — whether 
because the sentiment of duty was aroused in me, or 
whether because, as I had some reason later to think, 
the possibility that I myself had killed him was secretly 
more painful to me than I knew, I turned away without 
having carried out my pious intention or even endeav- 
oured to take off the bracelet which still glittered on 
his wrist. To touch those lifeless limbs, to unlace that 
cuirass, to open those garments, to seek thus the means 
of paying to a dead enemy one of those duties of the 
brotherhood of arms which are a part of the soldier’s 
religion — all this would have been perfectly easy 
toward an unknown person. To come so close to this 
man — who had been my schoolboy friend and whom I 
had perhaps myself killed — was too hard for me. Be- 
sides, I had no longer time. A courier had just ridden 
up with an order to move off to the right, in the direc- 
tion of Colombey. A fog was rising, so dense that it 
would soon render any movement very difficult, and the 
enemy’s cannonade was already beginning, though it 
was not yet five o’clock. We had, fortunately, only 
about two miles to go, and we were an endless time 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


249 


about it. It was necessary to keep off the road to 
Sarrebruck, now swept by the enemy’s fire and by our 
own — the artillery of both armies disputing it, the 
German from Montoy, the French from Bordes and 
Valli^res. When we reached the wood of Colombey 
the fog had disappeared. It was half -past seven. I 
have a reason for remembering this fact, for I had just 
taken out my watch when I heard two of my men ex- 
changing remarks upon the engagement of the preceding 
evening : — 

thought you were left there,’ one said to the 
other, ‘when that big Prusco of a captain attacked you. 
How did you get out of it? ’ 

“‘It was my horse saved me. He shied and received 
the stroke. Then I sabred, and that did it. You 
didn’t see me?’ 

“It is probably true, as I said, that unconsciously 
something within me shuddered at the thought that my 
former friend was perhaps slain by my hand, for the 
most irresistible, the most unreasoning of impulses 
made me question the second of the two speakers, and 
I asked: — 

“‘Then it was you who killed one of the officers?’ 

“‘Yes, captain,’ he replied. 

“‘And which one?’ I asked. 

“The man laughed. ‘I didn’t ask his name,’ he said. 
‘It was a tall man, fair, with a skin like a young lady’s. 
That I am sure of!’ 


250 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


“‘And yon noticed nothing further?’ 

“‘Nothing, captain.’ 

“‘It was already almost dark when we charged. Are 
you sure you should recognize him?’ 

“‘Should I recognize him? I was close on him when 
I killed him,’ he replied. 

“‘Suppose I ask you to go back there with me and 
show him to me? ’ I asked abruptly. 

“‘Back there? Where we slept last night?’ 

“I said, ‘Yes.’ And as he hesitated, I continued: 
‘You are afraid. It was not you that killed him.’ 

“ ‘You think I didn’t kill him? ’ the soldier cried out. 
‘Come, captain! You shall see if I am afraid.’ 

“We set off, the soldier and I, at a rapid trot of our 
horses. What impulse had I obeyed in proposing to 
this brave fellow an expedition so insane, and’ in mak- 
ing pretence of doubting his courage? I did not know 
then, nor do I now. I had suddenly perceived the 
chance of assuring myself positively that I had not 
killed Otto de Winkel, and I grasped it with an ardour 
which contrasted oddly enough, you will think, with 
my previous composure, at first sight of his dead body. 
I shall not try to explain it to you. This eagerness to 
ascertain the true author of this death was neither 
reasoned out nor reasonable. It was even worse than 
that. In war to encounter a needless danger is almost 
as culpable as to shrink from a needful one. And my 
fault was twofold, since I imposed upon another also 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


251 


this needless danger. At first all went better than I 
deserved, for we galloped along this road to Sarrebruck 
under a raking fire from two batteries, without having 
even a scratch, neither ourselves nor our horses j and 
we dismounted in the field where we had slept the night 
before, and where the white giants still lay scattered. 
My heart was beating violently, would you believe it, 
and can you tell me yourself why, when we approached 
the corner where Winkel lay, I experienced an inex- 
pressible relief — from what? I ask you further — when 
the trooper, who had leaned over the body, cried out : — 
“‘He is the one, I am sure of it; and you can see, 
captain, for yourself, that I am telling the truth, for I 
said I sabred him like this.’ 

“ ‘Can you assist me to unbuckle his cuirass? ’ I asked. 
“‘Why not?’ he replied. ‘But it is tempting Provi- 
dence, captain.’ And he made a sign to me to listen 
to a shell that was going over our heads. He had such 
a carelessness as to danger on his jocose face that I 
felt bound to justify myself to him for bringing him 
there, and I said, pointing to the dead officer: — 

“‘I knew him in France, when we were boys; and I 
would like to see if there is not something on him that 
I could send to his family.’ 

“‘I understand, captain,’ the trooper said, with his 
everyday shrewdness, divining the singular scruple 
which had made me bring him to the spot; and he 
urged, as he began undoing the cuirass: ‘What the 


252 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


devil made him attack me so furiously? But we must 
take things as they come; isn’t that so, captain? Good, 
here’s his pocketbook,’ and he held it out to me; ‘here’s 
his watch, ’ and he handed me that. ‘ Tiens I he has a 
bracelet on! Shall I take it off? ’ And, on my affirma- 
tive reply, he held that out also. We had but just 
completed this spoliation — which was really a pious 
act, and would have seemed to an ignorant looker-on 
the most sacrilegious brigandage — when I felt myself 
struck, as if by a formidable fist. By the report and by 
the whirlwind of dust which sprung up around us, I was 
aware that a shell had just exploded. My trooper was 
standing very near, looking at me with terror, and I 
was lying on the ground, my right arm shattered. The 
pain was so intense and the loss of blood so great that 
I believed myself fatally wounded. 

‘“lam nipped, my lad! ’ I said to the brave fellow. 
‘If you can get away, you shall have something for 
your trouble. Take my pocketbook. I give you all 
there is in it; and get off!’ 

“‘And leave you here, captain? ’ he replied. ‘Never 
in the world! It’s quite enough to have killed your 
friend for you. Can you move your legs?’ he asked; 
and on my affirmative reply, he picks me up in his 
arms, sets me astride on my horse, tells me to hold 
on to the mane with my remaining hand, takes my 
bridle on his wrist, and jumps upon his own animal. 
Again we take the Sarrebruck road under the fire of the 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


253 


artillery, and again follow the brook of Colombey. 
When we reached the squadron I fell fainting from my 
horse. The same evening I received my promotion — 
and my arm was cut off. Life was ended for me.” 

‘‘And did you at least find the address to which to 
return the bracelet?” I questioned. 

“Yes,” replied Percheux. “I sent it just as it was, 
with some letters and a picture that he had about him, 
and not a word with them. Would you believe that at 
the time, and for many years after, I could not forgive 
that poor fellow for having been indirectly the cause of 
my spoiled career? I blamed him for having made me 
commit a military fault! For it was one, and an un- 
pardonable one, this freak of mine, in search of what, 
I ask you? Now that I am approaching the age when, 
even if I had my two arms, I should be retired, I like 
to think that from the other world, where there are 
neither French nor Prussians, my boyhood’s friend 
saw my soldier and me remaining under fire long 
enough to pay him the homage that soldiers owe to a 
dead enemy who has fought gallantly. For that reason 
I can come here to this place and look at this inscrip- 
tion without too much sadness. You will be surprised 
to know that I come here with the same soldier who 
was with me then. He waited on you at table this 
morning, and will wait on you this evening. After 
Metz he never left me. He has been my valet-de-chambre 
for twenty-five years. He knows all this story; and 


254 


THREE INCIDENTS OP WAR 


my dead friend owes it to him that the word and date, 
Ostern 1858, which tell of WinkePs visit here, are not 
destroyed by moss and lichens, and that the path to this 
rock is always kept in order. Soldiers feel like this. 
You need to have been in the service, in the field, to 
prove and know them. War has its cruelty and bru- 
tality doubtless; but all the same, take my word for 
it, it is a noble, human thing.” 

CosTABELLE, April, 1900. 


II 

BOB MILNER 

We were talking that evening, in the smoking-room, 
at the house of Monsieur B., of the “insularity” of the 
English, of that indestructible inner energy, by grace 
of which, under all latitudes, in all social surround- 
ings, through all adventures, they all, old or young, 
men or women, have the secret of remaining identi- 
cally themselves, as it were, impenetrable to the at- 
mosphere around them, with the ideas and tastes, the 
feelings and the habits, formed in their little native 
place, in Surrey or Yorkshire, in Devon or “the Bor- 
der.” Many of the Frenchmen present related anec- 
dotes upon this subject, more or less legendary, and 
showing especially another indestructible fact, namely, 
the difference of mentality of these two countries s§^- 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


255 


rated by an arm of the sea, and morally as distant as 
the antipodes. Among these stories of no great value 
one struck me as extremely significant, on account of a 
curious and dramatic mingling of eccentricity and cour- 
age, of loyality and absurdity, almost. It was related 
to us quite simply by General de Eoysord, whom none 
of us would have suspected, from his jovial red face, 
quite too much that of the hon vivant, of having passed 
through experiences ” like this — to use an Anglicism 
that seems made for the occasion. 

^^For my part,” he began, “the most singular Eng- 
lishman I ever knew had nothing in common with the 
noble lords and aristocratic ladies whose eccentricities 
you have been narrating to us. He followed the occu- 
pation of a dog-seller, and had upon his sign the com- 
monplace and very humble name of ‘Bob Milner,’ and 
under it the word ‘Breeder,’ which has no exact equiva- 
lent with us. It is the French eleveur, but the ‘breeder ’ 
deals only in dogs of certain races, and those absolutely 
pure-bred. Milner lived near the aqueduct of Point- 
du-Jour, close up to the fortifications, in a wooden shed, 
where I fully expected to lose my life. When I speak of 
having known this man, I give you the idea that I saw 
him often, as a customer, perhaps, and that my relations 
with him were of a commonplace order. On the con- 
trary, I never saw him but once in my life; but that 
once counts for a hundred, two hundred, a thousand 
times, — you shall decide. 


256 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


“I was at that time a very young captain. It was 
about the first of May, 1871. You will suppose, from 
the date, that it is a story of war. Be tranquil, it will 
be short; and there is nothing heroic in it, so far as I 
am concerned. After being taken prisoner at one of 
the engagements which preceded Forbach, I had made 
my first escape in November. I had been again taken, 
and a second time had been able to get away and re- 
turn into France, but not until the end of January; 
and when I arrived in Bordeaux, to report to the min- 
ister, the war against the invaders was ended and that 
against the insurgents was about to begin. 

“I had been transferred to a regiment of the line 
which, at this date in May, was encamped around Paris 
and, precisely, at the Point-du-Jour. It was a dismal 
post, and the memory of it would remain as a night- 
mare of weariness in my mind, notwithstanding the 
tragic character of the epoch, had not the episode of 
the dog-seller been included in it! You must acknowl- 
edge that for a young officer who had passed five 
months of devouring impatience while fighting was 
going on without him, it was a very enervating busi- 
ness to wait under a casemate the order to march, and 
have nothing in sight but a line of fortifications and an 
aqueduct. 

“ Our duty consisted in watching the river banks and 
the ramparts, and here and there picking up a marauder, 
and, at lucky moments, exchanging shots with some 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


257 


detachment of communists, who, at intervals, made 
a vague reconnoissance in our direction. It was not 
these encounters that did us much harm. The real 
danger for us was in the stray shells which, from time 
to time, and although we were protected by Mont- 
Valerien, reached us from some battery firing volleys. 
Held as we were there, motionless and expectant, this 
irregular bombardment, which now happened and now 
did not happen, irritated still further our impatience 
to fight. In truth, we were all tempted to hate our 
chiefs for this slowness, which I now can see very 
clearly to have been wisdom itself. In the presence 
of revolution, those who have the honour to represent 
the cause of order must take no risks. A defeat may 
have extremely serious results, in giving encouragement 
to other elements of insurrection scattered and con- 
cealed throughout the country. 

“One does not reason when one is twenty -five and 
has blood in his veins, and has that eagerness to dis- 
tinguish himself which sees in danger a chance for 
glory. And so I cursed the tactics of the prudent 
marshal so often and so heartily that by dint of look- 
ing toward Paris the idea came into my mind one 
night to go and ascertain for myself whether a certain 
bastion, whose mass lay a little in front of the aque- 
duct, and whence there had come for a half-week no 
sign of life, was really well guarded or not — one of 
those breakneck projects, you know, stupid things 


258 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


when they fail, brilliant deeds when they are success- 
ful! After thirty years, mine seems to me to have 
been not a bad scheme. It was there, exactly at that 
point, that our troops entered ten days later; and if I 
had had more luck, I should have opened this passage 
for them — and then! I should not now be merely a 
poor retired brigadier; I should be historic and national! 
But to my story. 

have not told you my project: it was only that, 
taking advantage of a fine moonlight night that lighted 
up half the river, I proposed to swim up-stream, keep- 
ing on the side that lay in shadow, land on the shore, 
creep up to the bastion, visit what part of it I could, 
and return as I came — or not return. I was an excel- 
lent swimmer, so that the prospect of returning to the 
camp without having been out of the water at all, if I 
found no place where I could land, caused me no anxiety. 

“ I had no sooner formed this audacious plan than I 
put it into execution. I rolled my clothing in a piece 
of rubber cloth and tied it up with a string and arranged 
it so that I could carry the package on the back of my 
neck, while .1 was in the water, without inconvenience. 
I told my lieutenant what I was about to attempt, so 
that he could await me on my return at a given point, 
and if I did not return would know the reason of my 
absence. As a matter of form he offered the objections 
which you will divine. I received them in the way 
which you will also divine ; and at one o^clock in the 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


259 


morning I was there in the river, swimming slowly up- 
stream, carefully saving my strength, and also on the 
lookout for nets, which we had heard barred the passage 
against attempts like mine. 

I made it a point to be very sure of my way and 
not to fall into any snare. Each stroke of my arms 
was, so to speak, a movement of exploration. If I 
should live a hundred years, I should never forget the 
moments thus passed. In this spring night the water 
was deliciously cool and wrapped me in a supple caress, 
which made me the more conscious of the tension of 
my excited nerves. From my shadow I saw the cur- 
rent flowing past in broad waves of silver in its lighted 
portion, and the stars throbbing in the sky, and the 
outline of the aqueduct projecting black. Was it on 
account of the light almost equal to that of day, or was 
it merely a whim of the gunners of the commune? Cer- 
tain it is that the noise of an artillery engagement far 
in the distance could be heard; and once the hiss of a 
shell above me made me instinctively put my head 
under water. 

At last I was under the bridge ; I heard the ripple 
of the water against the piles; an eddy compelled me 
to a greater effort to strike over to the left and reach 
the bank. I encountered no net, but, on the contrary, 
a ring, placed there to moor some boat. I clung to it, 
and with my hands and my bare feet seeking crevices 
in the stone wall of the quay, I clambered to its top. 


260 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


Then I lay flat for several minutes. Hearing no sound, 
I ventured to undo my package and to dress under the 
arch, whence I finally emerged, keeping close to the 
wall, my army revolver in my hand. The warmth of 
my clothing, which had been hermetically protected by 
the rubber cloth, and a mouthful of brandy from my 
flask, had restored its warm circulation to my blood. 
And never in my life had I felt more fit. It was as 
if I were going to take Paris myself, all alone ! 

“It was I who narrowly escaped being taken, there 
and then. I had not gone fifty steps, slipping along 
under the arches of the aqueduct, when, at the angle of 
a pier, I found myself face to face with a sentry, who 
doubtless had seen me coming and was lying in wait 
for me, for he charged at me with his bayonet, crying 
a ‘Who goes there?’ which I hear still. I have said 
that I was armed. But the report of a pistol would 
notify all the soldiers on guard within a quarter of a 
mile in every direction. 

“My communist was young and slender, scarcely 
more than a boy. I was athletic and a trained wrestler. 
I avoid his bayonet-thrust; with a back-handed stroke I 
knock his weapon from his grasp, and I give him a 
blow on the breast that would fell an ox. He stumbles 
and falls on his knees without having strength to cry 
out, and I run at full speed toward the river. At the 
corner of the aqueduct I perceive men marching : it is 
a patrol making the rounds. At this moment a shot 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


261 


notifies me that the victim of my recent blow has re- 
covered consciousness. The signal is heard by his com- 
rades, and they stop. I also stop. My road is barred. 

^^By an instinct, to which I owed my safety, I had 
rushed outside the arches of the bridge as soon as the 
sentry fell, and my first steps of fiight had been pro- 
tected by a sort of fence, along which I had run. Still 
listening to the voices of the communists, who were 
talking with each other, I noticed that this fence ended, 
a little farther on, at a house, — a hut, rather, — where a 
faint light showed through a window. There was every 
probability of its being a post of communists. Still I 
made for it, with the idea that possibly this post was 
empty and that no one would think, in the battue which 
was about to follow, of looking for me there. 

^^When I came up to this cabin, I stood motionless 
for some time, surprised that I heard not a sound from 
within. Then I came a few steps farther toward the 
window, and, standing on tiptoe, I saw inside, by the 
light of a candle, a man occupied with something so 
completely unexpected, at that time and in that place, 
that it seemed incredible : he was seated, and held upon 
his knees one of those English spaniels that are called 
Blenheims. The little creature was evidently very ill, 
for its eyes were half closed, and it yielded almost 
inertly to the man’s hands who, with extreme care, 
was opening its mouth to pour in a few drops of a 
liquid which he had in a bottle. 


262 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


“In a corner of the room a second dog, resembling 
the other, but this one evidently in good health, was 
curled up in a basket. All white and curly, with red- 
dish spots, he rested upon his fore paws his flattened 
muzzle, overhung by an immense forehead marked with 
the proper spot, and his two long red ears contrasted 
with his white coat. One thing more added to the 
fantastic effect of the scene: the quantity of pelts of 
other dogs hanging on the walls of this room. There 
were grayish ones, which had belonged to Skye terriers, 
others of brown, of little Yorkshires, others of pugs 
and bull-dogs. Though I was not very learned in this 
matter, I knew enough to see that these skins, perhaps 
twenty in number, which adorned the place, all came 
from animals of great value. One of the humble and 
comic consequences of the vast national disaster was 
manifested in this singularly enigmatic picture. I was 
soon to understand it, and, most unexpectedly, play a 
part in this drama of a breeder of pedigree dogs, ruined 
by the two sieges and determined not to quit his ken- 
nels, even under the fire of bombardment, even with 
the storming of the city among near probabilities. 

“Seeing the man was alone, I knocked twice upon 
the glass. He raised his head and showed a face which 
revealed his nationality as indisputably as did the ac- 
cent with which, having opened the window, he said 
‘What do you want of me?’ 

“‘Make your dog be still,’ I said, in a low voice, for 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


263 


the noise of the window and of our voices had awak- 
ened the sleeper, who yelped loudly. ‘I am pursued. 
If he keeps on barking, I am lost.’ 

^^‘Make my dog be still?’ he replied. ‘After what 
you have done with all my dogs, it is natural they 
should hate you. Come, Tiny,’ he added, however, in 
English, speaking to the little Blenheim, ‘keep still ! ’ 
Then, opening the door to me, but grumbling all the 
time : ‘Who are you? Who pursues you? And what, 
I say, do you want of me?’ 

“‘I want you to conceal me for half an hour,’ I said; 
and I related to him briefly what I have just told you, 
and my whole plan. No sooner had I crossed his 
threshold than, by way of precaution, he pulled down 
two heavy wooden shutters over the window. He looked 
at me, while I was speaking to him, with a pair of very 
light eyes, which shone with extraordinary brilliancy. 
His face was tanned, clean shaven, with large, almost 
haggard, features, and reddish-brown hair; and his 
short nose, his drooping cheeks, and the kind of muz- 
zle which he had for a mouth, gave him a resemblance 
to a dog’s head, which was the more striking because 
his long torso was perched upon very crooked legs. 

“These mysterious identities between men and ani- 
mals, when the former live much with the latter, are 
in the regular routine. The jockey comes to have an 
equine profile, the shepherd has a head like a sheep. 
Bob Milner — this was the name of the dog-breeder — 


264 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


was a little mastiff, surly and trustworthy, like one of 
his former household, whose pelts now hung on his 
walls. I was going to test his good qualities by 
making use of him; but first I sought to know what 
strange existence this subject of Queen Victoria had 
found means to lead since the first investment of Paris, 
thus possessed, thus dominated by his passion for his 
dogs, which had ended in his having left, from what 
must have been an admirable collection, only these two 
Blenheims, of whom one was dying. 

“‘Well, my dear fellow,' he replied, when I had 
finished, ‘what is it to me, I ask you, whether these 
brigands take you or not? I am not a Prenchman, nor 
am I a German. I am an Englishman, and I am here 
to work. My work is to raise dogs. Ask those who 
have dealt with Bob Milner if they ever found him in 
the wrong, and if the dogs he sold them ever failed to 
be pure-bred dogs? Ask, I tell you! Not a mongrel 
among them, my dear fellow. I have never had a 
mongrel in my place. Sir, it is of me that Madame la 
duchesse d'Arcole bought her Skyes. Did you know 
them? I sold Monsieur Casal his fox terrier. I im- 
ported the collie that used to go walking in the Bois 
de Boulogne with Madame de Corcieux. And people 
used to come to see me ; every day, in those times, 
carriages would stand at my door. The handsome ladies 
would come to inquire, “How are you, my dear Bob?” 

“‘The war breaks out. I have twenty -five animals. 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


265 


sir, all with their pedigrees, and all acclimatized. I 
hesitate about going away. Everybody had been so 
good to me, I say to myself, no one will harm me; it 
is better to stay, it will be better for the dogs. Sir, 
you see those Skyes,’ and with a shaking hand he 
pointed to the long, silky, grayish-haired pelts, ‘those 
were the first that those cannibals took from me — to 
eat them, sir, — to eat Skye terriers! That is what they 
call requisitioning. I made a stand; but when I found 
that they would put me in prison, and that there would 
be no one to feed the other dogs, I said, “Take them; 
but let me keep the skins.” I killed them myself, so 
that they should not suffer; then I took off their skins. 
A dog, sir, it has a soul, you see! Those dogs knew 
that their friend Bob loved them — even then! 

“‘Then there came a lucky moment; that was when 
the shells began to fall in our quarter. You under- 
stand, then they no longer came to torment me. The 
dogs were a little frightened at first ; they barked when 
the shells whizzed overhead. After a while they 
became accustomed to it. I made little kennels for 
them underground, in the garden. I lived there with 
them myself, badly enough — -they, too. We had 
canned provisions, which we shared. They were all 
there then. We were protected. Not a splinter from 
a shell fell here. It was the Germans, when they came 
in, who killed four of my dogs and took away five. It 
was no use to complain. It was a band who had been 


266 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


drinking. What could I do? Then we went from 
bad to worse. Sickness broke out among them. Then 
these fellows here came afterward and did me harm 
again and again. Not all my dogs, but only two little 
ones — see, those poor fox terriers — they had seen me 
taking them out with coats on. They killed the dogs 
and half killed me, under pretext that I insulted the 
people. Insulted the people! Because my dogs had 
coats on! But when dogs are sick, haven’t they the 
right to be taken care of like human beings? 

“^In short, sir, with your wars, your socialisms, your 
barbarisms, here is all there is left me of my property. 
And the property, it isn’t that; but here is all that is 
left me of twenty-five of the prettiest little creatures 
that ever took prizes, — these two Blenheims, — and one 
of these, that one there. King, is so sick, so sick ! Go 
away, young man, and leave me to nurse him. What 
do you suppose I care whether they catch you or not? 
Each man for himself, you know, in this world ! Your 
communists have notified me that if I ever have the 
least thing to do with Versailles, they will burn my 
house and shoot me. Come, now, be off, or I shall 
call them ! ’ 

“ All this had been delivered with breathless rapidity, 
an accent that is absolutely inimitable, and the ges- 
tures of a pugilist. For the moment I impersonated to 
the little man, it seemed, all the miseries which he had 
endured for the last eight months — as a result of his 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


267 


own pigheadedness in not going away. His wrath was 
so sincere, and his complaints, however comic from 
one point of view, were in truth so legitimate, that it 
never occurred to me to be indignant because he now 
proposed to make me expiate all the cruelties that the 
various soldiers who had passed that way had practised 
upon his poor little animals. 

French or German, regulars or insurgents, this 
Briton confounded them all in one common hatred, 
which was not at all shared by the poor animals who 
were objects of his idolatry. The little Blenheim, the 
last survivor of the precious band, the one whom I 
had seen asleep, curled up in his basket, had not only 
ceased barking, but, while his master was talking, had 
come smelling about me. Then he had begun to seek, 
in all those pretty ways which these little creatures 
practise, to attract my attention. In the centuries that 
have passed since Van Dyck used to paint these spaniels 
in the laps of the princesses who were his contempo- 
raries, they have acquired, as a result of living in the 
continuous companionship of their masters and mis- 
tresses, a kind of social instinct which gives them 
sympathies and antipathies at sight. They have the 
gift of knowing at once to what social class the visitor, 
whom they have never seen before, belongs. They 
snap at a labourer and fawn upon a gentleman with a 
discernment which is snobbish in them, if you choose 
to say so, but of which I, for one, have certainly no 


268 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


reason to complain. See what occurred. By some in- 
explicable flair this Tiny — you will remember this 
one was Tiny — had satisfied himself that I was worthy 
of an aristocratic dog’s acquaintance. Accordingly, 
after having turned round and round a dozen times or 
more, and nervously scratched the back of his neck 
with his hind paw, and with his fore paw struck at his 
long ear, he came and rubbed his nose against my leg, 
and when I mechanically held out my hand to him, he 
licked it softly with his little pendulous tongue, and 
I scratched his head with my fingers. The moment 
when I was yielding to this demonstration of affection 
was exactly that in which my host was putting his 
cruel alternative to me: ‘Be off, or I shall call them! ’ 
throwing me back into danger, perhaps death. 

“‘Your dog is more good-hearted than you are, Mr. 
Milner,’ I said simply, calling his attention to the 
affectionate animal whose large, prominent eyes were 
fixed upon me full of that obscure, emotional soul 
which seems to think as well as feel. ^ Adieu, mon- 
sieur I said, again caressing the little dog. ‘Good-by, 
Tiny,’ I said in English to the Blenheim. I grasped 
my revolver tightly in my hand and turned toward the 
door. 

“Was it that the contrast between his attitude and 
his dog’s made Bob Milner feel ashamed? Had the 
caress with which I welcomed Tiny’s advances revealed 
to him a share in canine sympathy? Or did the three 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


269 


English words I had just spoken, in reminding him of 
his native country, suddenly reopen in that primitive 
nature the springs of deep-lying humanity? With 
utter amazement I suddenly beheld him rush past me 
to the door, bolt it, and then, still speaking in 
English and in a very low tone, begin grumbling at 
me, all the while pushing me toward the back of the 
room, toward a door which he flung open and then in- 
stantly closed upon me: ‘I hear them,^ he was saying, 
‘don^t budge, whatever happens — don’t budge, or 
you’ll get us all killed. Tiny and me, and you with 
us! ’ Then, with suppressed fury: ‘Why did you leave 
your camp and come here? What a damned fool you 
are! ’ 

“ I had scarcely time to get over my surprise at this 
amazing ‘About face!’ when a renewed barking from 
my friend the Blenheim showed that the dog-seller’s 
hearing had not played him false. Men were approach- 
ing the hut. Through the thin planks, in the vast still- 
ness of the night, I recognized the measured tread of 
soldiers marching. Would they pass the house with- 
out searching it? My life hung on the caprice of him 
who was in command. My heart beat so hard and 
sharp that I could hear it, just as clearly as I heard 
the steps of the soldiers on the road. As often hap- 
pens, the immediate presence of danger suddenly calmed 
my agitation. The men had stopped at the door of the 
hut. I heard voices, without being able to distinguish 


270 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


the words. Evidently they were deliberating. Tiny 
barked more furiously than ever. A blow with the 
butt-end of a gun struck on the door, which made the 
frail building tremble, announced the result of this im- 
provised council of war, and this dialogue took place, 
of which not a word now escaped me ; — 

“‘What do you want now of poor Bob?’ cried my 
host’s voice. ‘You have ruined him. You have killed 
his dogs. There are only two left of all he had, and 
one of them is dying. Eor God’s sake, let the poor 
animal die in peace.’ 

“‘We are not talking about your dogs,’ replied a 
voice, imperious though very hoarse, and an energetic 
oath, followed by a second blow on the door, accom- 
panied this injunction. ‘Are you going to let us in, 
old dog-seller, or must we smash your shed? We are 
looking for a man. Did you see him running; tell the 
truth ! Your dog barked just now, so we know he came 
this way.’ 

“‘Captain, we are losing time,’ spoke up another 
voice. ‘I have been looking through a crack. The old 
lascar is alone, with one of the dogs on his knees. The 
creature is sick, I know. He showed it to me to- 
day.” 

“‘A man?’ Bob Milner answered. ‘And how should 
I have seen a man? I have been sitting here two hours 
nursing my dog. You know that he is sick, very sick, 
monsieur le sergent, ’ — he then had recognized the man 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


271 


who had last spoken. ‘Tiny barked, I suppose, because 
some one was passing, but I did not notice. Oh, poor 
King! how he trembles. They shall not hurt you, my 
dear! For pity’s sake, monsieur le sergent, you who 
know him and know how good he was, ask them to let 
him die in peace! ’ 

“‘You see he knows nothing about our man; he hasn’t 
seen anybody,’ resumed the sergeant’s voice. ‘I stand 
by what I said, captain, and I repeat it. The man 
went behind the hut and is now going along on the 
fortifications. He must either jump off or be caught. 
He will not jump off, and we shall catch him. Only 
we must be going.’ 

“‘I should greatly like, however, to smoke out this 
old loufoque,^ said the captain, ‘who puts coats on his 
dogs, and makes coffee for them, while we are getting 
ourselves killed for the good cause ! But you are right ; 
the other is more urgent. You shall lose nothing by 
waiting, old dog-man ; we will see you again ! ’ 

“With this menacing adieu the band went away. I 
heard the noise of steps growing fainter, and at last I 
ventured to open the door, surprised that my protector 
had not come to call me. Much was he thinking of 
me, verily, or of the captain’s threat! He was sitting 
just as I had seen him, half an hour earlier, through 
the window, the sick dog on his knees, trying to warm 
it, though the stiffened paws and body, shaken by 
convulsive spasms, told clearly that it was dying. 


272 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


come to thank you, Mr. Milner,’ I saidj ^you 
have saved my life.’ 

“‘And you,’ he said, with still more anger than 
before, ‘have killed King for me! If you had not 
come just when I was giving him his medicine, I 
should have saved his life — yes, I should have saved 
him! And now he is dying! He is dying! He is 
dying! But now, will you go — since they have gone 
away ! ’ 

“And, rising from his chair, the sick dog clasped to 
his breast, he proceeded to draw the bolt, open the door, 
and push me out into the road, with a violence of 
which I would not have believed that frail figure was 
capable. My minutes were precious. I had no time 
to repeat to him the expression of my gratitude. I 
remembered the ominous farewell of the captain; I 
promised myself to try, when we should enter the 
city, to save at least the cabin and its two surviving 
inmates, the man and the dog. But the first thing to 
do now was to get to the river. I got to it. I threw 
myself into the water, in all my clothes, just as I was, 
and in so doing attracted a shot from another sentry, 
which, however, was not well aimed. Fifteen minutes 
with the current brought me to my point of departure, 
where my lieutenant was awaiting me. I had not 
taken Paris, but I had not myself been taken.” 

“And Bob Milner?” one of us asked. “Did you 
ever see him again?” 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


273 


“Never,” replied the general. “When we entered 
the city, some days later, I received orders to go as 
far in as the Trocadero. We at once encountered an 
obstinate resistance in the streets, and all the rest that 
you know. It was not till the end of the week that I 
was able to get back to Point-du- Jour. Where the 
cabin had stood there was only a heap of charred 
wood, and in it lay, also half burned, the signboard 
of which I spoke: ‘Bob Milner, Breeder.’ 

“What had taken place? Had Milner been able to 
escape with his last dog, as soon as the troops came 
in, and return to England, through horror of the con- 
tinent and all the people who live there; and then, 
had a chance shell set fire to the cabin? Or had the 
communist officer, in a spasm of rage, fulfilled his 
threat and smoked out the Houfoque^ and his ‘dog with 
a coat on’? 

“ This I shall never know, unless by some improbable 
chance. But for an insular, he was a genuine one ! ” 

Naples, March, 1901. 


Ill 

A CHIEF 

In a railway carriage, returning from a review, we 
were talking about that problem of discipline, which 
is especially vital for these vast modern armies 


274 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


like the one we had seen manoeuvre, where, at 
the least break, number would fearfully multiply 
disorder. In this connection it was discussed among 
us whether there were more or less efficaciousness in 
corporal punishment, which prevails to this day, it 
seems, in certain countries. A retired colonel who 
was in our party took occasion from this to relate an 
anecdote which we all agreed in thinking very signifi- 
cant. “You ought to write it down,’’ some one said 
to me. “With the colonel’s permission, I will,” I re- 
joined. “Certainly,” he said, “If you will suppress 
names.” I took advantage of his permission as soon 
as I reached home, and you have here the story. It 
is the colonel who is speaking. 

“Corporal punishment in our army? Never! It 
would do no good, and, besides, it would be impos- 
sible. What is it that distinguishes the French soldier 
when he is good? It is nerve, cheerfulness, push. 
He is not an automaton; he is a person. All his 
faults arise from this, and all his virtues. It is the 
same with the French officer. He is good for nothing 
unless his men love him. All of them feel this; and 
there is no army in the world where the chiefs live 
closer to their men and treat them better — like human 
beings. To return to what I said before, it is abso- 
lutely true during my whole military career, — and it 
has had its hard days, for I was with Bourbaki in 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


275 


the East, — I never have but once — once only, you 
understand — seen an officer strike an inferior; and the 
little drama to which this brutal act gave occasion is 
so greatly to the honour of our military spirit in the 
lower grades, as well as in the higher, that I always 
think of it with a kind of professional pride ; I should 
say even with a kind of joy, had it not indirectly cost 
the offender his life — a man who was one of my best 
comrades, and perhaps the most remarkable officer I 
have ever known. 

“His name was Gustave P., and he was at the time 
I refer to, the year 1884, a major of chasseurs. He 
was about forty, but so slender, so vigorous, so spir- 
ited, that at the head of a charge he gave one the 
idea of what the great cavalry officers must have been 
— a Lasalle, a Latour-Maubourg, a Montbrun. Fiery, 
yet what a power of endurance! He also shared in 
that retreat in the East, and I never saw him more 
fatigued at one hour than at another. To these phy- 
sical gifts of the war-animal, he united the others. 
There was a memory, and a quickness at seizing the 
main point! And a passion for his profession! In 
short, at the time when this scene took place, we all 
considered him as the man among us who would go 
farthest and most rapidly, and the more since he had 
inspired a keen interest — he who had no need of pro- 
tection — in that general officer who was most power- 
ful at the ministry. General M. These two splendid 


276 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


soldiers were made to understand each other. The 
temperament was the same, a generation apart. As 
regards the service, I mean, for in respect to morals. 
General M. has always been of the tradition of the 
Catinats, the Davouts, the Friants: one of those pure- 
minded heroes who add to their warrior virtues all the 
virtues of private life; while P., like that Lasalle 
whose name came to me naturally, suggested by his 
own, was, in every way, a hrUleur. He loved the table, 
gaming, and women, as he did everything, with that 
ardour which his bold, soldier’s face declared, where his 
blue eyes, showing so light with his browned skin, 
had the brilliancy and the quick motion of the eyes of 
certain birds of prey. At twenty-five this keen and 
soldierly fellow had been a very personification of all 
fascinating qualities. And so he still was in 1884, 
though his prematurely whitened hair made him look 
older than he was, notwithstanding his figure and 
action, which remained young as ever. He had had 
many love affairs, in all ranks of life. Some of these 
1 knew about, and others I had guessed. He had never 
taken any of them very seriously. A gay party with 
comrades had always been able to make him forget. 
And so, in the year of which I speak, the Grand Ma- 
noeuvres being about to take place, when General M., 
to whose service I was attached, showed me the list of 
the officers whom he had designated to accompany his 
staff, and I found P.’s name among them, I could not 
restrain an expression of pleasure. 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


277 


“‘I know,’ the general said, ‘you are very fond of 
him. That is one of the reasons why I have asked for 
him. He needs some distraction just now. He is in 
a very bad way. It is some time since you have seen 
him? ’ 

“‘Six months or more, general,’ I said. 

“‘You will find him much changed. It is an unfor- 
tunate affair with a woman’ — and he related to me, 
in a tone of saddened disgust, one of those everyday 
stories which, reduced to essentials, are nothing more 
than a newspaper item. Only in knowing the hero of 
this story was its tragic nature apparent. P., at that 
time in garrison at Compiegne, had formed a liaison 
with an insignificant actress at the VarieUs, in Paris. 
He had become passionately in love with her, and she 
exploited him, and deceived him. She had cost him 
already more than fifty thousand francs, — an enormous 
sum for his very limited means. The worst of it was 
the fever of excitement in which he was kept all the 
time by this girl’s coquetry. His relations, informed 
by a comrade, lectured him. His reply had been such 
that they became alarmed, and addressed themselves to 
the general. He, in turn, had spoken to P. He had 
happened upon a moment when the younger man was 
in a state of desperation, but had not been able to 
obtain a promise of giving the girl up. I still seem to 
hear the good general exclaiming, at this point of his 
story: ‘I offered to have him transferred to any place 


278 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


he desired, if only it were remote from Paris j and what 
do you think he said to me, “In six weeks I should 
send in my resignation.” He! resign from the army! 
An ofB-cer like that, and for whom? For whom? This 
is why I asked for him: to have him with me during 
the manoeuvres this year, and to speak to him again. 
Try to influence him, if you can. If he must have a 
petticoat at any price, let him get married! That is 
such an easy matter. A family gives a man heart for 
war. The other sort takes it away. In short, you 
must help me to save him.' 

“I did not attempt to explain to the general that 
conjugal life had not the faintest resemblance to the 
mad passion with which our friend was devoured, ac- 
cording to this account. Though no great scholar in 
this matter, I had often noticed that the age of forty 
marks a dangerous crisis for lady-killers like this man. 
Is it the first touch of age which renders them less 
capable of recovery and reaction? Is it the vanity fed 
by their past successes which the least sign of falling 
off infuriates? Is it the idea that at a certain period 
in life, our share of happy sensations being now com- 
plete, a lost love is not to be replaced? Whatever the 
cause may be, the effect is certain. This was proved 
to me afresh when I found myself in P.'s company a 
few days after this conversation. He had come to join 
us at Esternay, not far from here, and after twenty- 
four hours' delay — he, the most punctual of soldiers! 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


279 


If I had not known the fact from the general, I should 
have divined it at a glance. There was still the same 
strong and slender horseman, the same haughty and 
soldierly profile, the same imperious manner of the 
born leader whose every gesture commands. But in 
the depths of his blue eyes there was an inquietude I 
had never seen before in him, the most decided of men j 
a bitter wrinkle at the corner of the mouth where his 
fair moustache had turned gray; a nervousness in his 
whole being and an abruptness in his voice, as of one 
whom some secret wound continually stings — that 
voice which, in our youth, and amid the most danger- 
ous encounters, sang so gayly the hymn to Bourbaki : — 

^‘^Oentil TurcOy 

Quand autour de ta boule 
Comme un serpent s^enroule 
Le calicot 

Qui te sert de shako — * 

“My impression of his suffering was so keen that I 
did not allow myself any of the pleasantries with which 
I otherwise should not have failed to welcome him, 
knowing what I knew. 

“'We were expecting you day before yesterday,^ I 
said to him. 'Has the general had it out with you?’ 

'"No,’ he said, without other comment. 'Where do 
you lodge me?’ 


280 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


‘‘And outside of this question, nothing; not a word 
of interest as to what had become of me during these 
six months. Not a word, either, during our evening 
meal, which we partook at the mess-table, P. sharing 
in the conversation no further than by a few words 
now and then, just enough to prevent his silence being 
noticeable. He rose before dinner was over and, as I 
followed him, determined in any case to break the ice, I 
noticed that he asked a question of a soldier. 

“‘What were you asking of that good fellow ?’ I said 
as I joined him. ‘If there is anything I can do for 
you — ’ 

“‘I was inquiring which way the quartermaster 
would be coming,’ he replied. 

“‘So soon!’ I said, passing my arm through his. 
‘You are expecting some woman’s letter! Are you 
never, then, going to reform? You must tell me all 
about it.’ 

“‘You are mistaken,’ he said, disengaging his arm 
with an air of displeasure, which sufficiently showed 
me how little his present passion resembled the light 
intrigues of which he had so willingly, heretofore, con- 
fided to me the story. ‘It is a letter from a notary on 
a little matter of business. Ah! there he comes.” 

“‘There is nothing I can do, general,’ I said to our 
common friend that evening. He had sent for me to 
ask about the demeanour of P. this first evening. ‘He 
was scarcely civil, and had it been any other man — ’ 


THBEE INCIDENTS OP WAR 


281 


“‘Yes, but it is not any other man,’ the general in- 
terrupted me. ‘You remember what Napoleon wrote 
to Prince d’Eckmiihl, sending Vandamme to him: “He 
is unendurable. But endure him, for he is a warrior ^ 
and they are becoming scarce . I am not the emperor, 
nor have you gained the battle of Auerstadt. But Van- 
damme was no braver than P., of that I am sure. Be 
patient with him as I am. He must get through this 
strait without resigning. He must do it. Besides, the 
work will make him himself again and cure him. We 
will save him. You will see.’ 

“This ‘you will see,’ signified, as I knew before- 
hand, that these manoeuvres were to be — as was M.’s 
custom — so severe that our comrade, and all the rest 
of us, would not have a minute’s time in which to 
dream of heart-aches or any other. Ah ! what an edu- 
cator of troops he was, and what officers and men he 
succeeded in getting! And adored with all that — 
you will see to what a point by the anecdote I prom- 
ised to tell you, which I am coming to now. A week 
had passed since we had exchanged these observations, 
and during that time there had been nothing but 
marching and countermarching, orders and counter- 
orders, rising at four o’clock, going to bed at ten, and 
the whole day in the saddle. We had all worked well, 
P. with the others, more than the others, even, for the 
great chief had, so to speak, never left him. Nor had 
I myself ever lost sight of him, though I had avoided 


282 


THREE INCIDENTS OP WAR 


all occasion of a second time putting his had humour 
and my patience to the test; and I had come to the 
conclusion that the remedy our general had proposed 
was taking effect. P., now and then, would laugh and 
talk. His mouth grew more cheerful, his eyes more 
rational. And so I was very far from expecting the 
attack of half -madness which came suddenly to horrify 
us all, and whose memory affects me even now when I 
think of it. I knew afterward that he had received, 
the preceding evening, — from one of those unwise 
friends who believe they are doing us a service by 
making known to us as fact the thing of which the 
mere idea drives us to madness, — a fearful letter about 
the conduct of his mistress during his absence. I had 
noticed, in saying good morning to him that day, that 
again his face was clouded as on the day of his arrival. 
Then I had not thought of it again, being absorbed in 
the interest of the military action in which we were 
about to take part. At this moment I see that scene 
as if I were there. It was a morning which promised 
a beautiful, warm day. No later than eight o’clock, 
and the sun was already hot. We were a little group 
of officers awaiting, on a low hillock in the shadow 
of a few trees, the return of General M., who had left 
us, to go without escort, for a final glance at the lines. 
Knowing that we should have to wait some time, we 
had dismounted, and our men were holding our horses. 
Suddenly an officer says to P. : — 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


283 


*‘‘Look at that fool there; see how he is pulling that 
horse about; you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t spoil his mouth.’ 

‘‘ It was a fact that, at the moment, the hussar who 
had charge of the horse was martyrizing the poor ani- 
mal, jerking his bit, to make him stand still. P. turns. 
He sees what is going on. An expression of rage, such 
as I have never seen on the face of any one else, dis- 
torted his features grown suddenly grayish, and before 
any one of us could even think of stopping him, he 
had sprung forward with lifted whip. The soldier, 
who had not seen him coming, received the first stroke 
upon the shoulder. He jumps back. The second 
knocks off his kepi. For a moment we thought he was 
about to spring upon the aggressor; he, too, had grown 
so pale, and what a look ! He had dropped the bridle 
of the horse, and his two fists were clenched. Fortu- 
nately, he controlled himself. We saw something — 
that was not fear — get the better of his anger; he went 
and picked up his cap and unfastened his own horse; 
and P., restored to himself, disentangled the reins of 
his animal and got into the saddle, while no one of the 
witnesses of this scene broke a silence which became 
tragic when we heard General M.’s voice speaking to 
us. He had galloped back to us without our being 
able to see him coming, on account of the clump of 
trees, which also hid from him P.’s incredible outrage. 
This we perceived from the gay tone in which he called 
out to us: — 


284 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


“‘Well, gentlemen, all in saddle and quickly! We 
have things by the right end to-day ! ’ Then, when he 
had come close up to us, he stopped speaking. He 
perceived by our appearance that something extraor- 
dinary had happened in his absence, and he asked; — 

“‘Well! What’s going on?’ 

‘“Nothing, general,’ I replied, as if he had spoken 
to me alone. ‘Nothing at all.’ And the same instinct 
that had led me to offer this denial prevented any 
one of my comrades from raising his voice to contra- 
dict me. I well remember that as I spoke, I did not 
dare to look toward the soldier who had been struck. 
But neither did he protest. And the general himself 
said simply, ‘Ah! ’ which proved to me that he was not 
at all deceived by my reply. But time was slipping 
by, and first of all, the day’s work surely! He made 
no further inquiry, and a few minutes later we were 
galloping, boot by boot, toward the point determined 
on by our chief, the occupation of which would secure 
to us ‘the right end.’ 

“ Only I who knew him was sure that the day would 
not end without his getting to the bottom of the morn- 
ing’s incident. How would it be possible to conceal 
this incident when it had had over twenty witnesses, 
and among them several common soldiers? Moreover, 
he who had been the victim would make a complaint, 
and he would have the right to do it. What would 
happen to the offender? And, to us all, what a trying 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


285 


thing! What a humiliation! It would be hard for me 
to tell you what I felt all that day. I never in my 
life more thoroughly understood what is meant by the 
old expression, brothers-in-arms. I did not look at P. 
once during those twelve hours. I did not address a 
word to him. It was as if, dishonouring his uniform 
by an action unworthy of an officer, he had dishonoured 
mine and that of all our comrades. But let us go 
on. 

‘‘What I had foreseen came to pass very exactly. 
About half -past seven in the evening, after we were in 
our lodgings in the little city where we were to spend 
the night, the general sent for me. 

“‘Fortunately,’ said the young lieutenant by whom 
he had sent the message, and who had been one of the 
witnesses of the morning’s scene, ‘the general knows 
nothing about P.’s affair. I hear that the soldier 
makes no complaint.’ 

“‘How did you hear?’ I asked. 

“‘From one of our men. They have taken an oath, 
the eight soldiers who were with us, himself included, 
to remain silent. “The chief is so fond of him,” they 
said to me, speaking of P., “he loves him like a sonj 
and the general is so good to us. We will not cause 
him this grief.”’ 

“‘But it’s impossible!’ I exclaimed. 

“‘I don’t know whether it’s impossible,’ the lieuten- 
ant said, ‘but it’s true. What soldiers Frenchmen are! ’ 


286 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


“‘When they have such a general as M./ I replied. 
‘And do you know whether P. has any idea of this? ' 

“‘He has not opened his lips all day. But if you 
would like to see him, here we are, just in front of his 
house.’ 

“‘Unless he apologizes to this soldier, I shall never 
want to see him again while I live, ’ was my reply. 

“‘He? Apologize?’ said the lieutenant. ‘He would 
be more likely to repeat the offence. I looked at him 
well this morning, and all day to-day. He is a wild 
beast when he is angry, and he would be cut to pieces 
sooner than come round; do you want to know what 
the end will be of this? There’ll be a duel with one 
of us. The others all think as you do. He’ll be quar- 
antined, and then! However, the manoeuvres are just 
ending, and perhaps nothing may happen. At any 
rate, the worst is avoided.’ 

“ He had spoken very sensibly, as you see ; and when 
he had finished speaking to me in this way, I remem- 
ber perfectly that I agreed with him, and I said, ‘Yes, 
that is true; the worst is avoided.’ Then, when I 
found myself in the presence of the general, I will 
not undertake to explain to you what took place in 
me. But I felt, just as soon as I met his grave and 
loyal glance, that 1 physically could not lie to him if he 
questioned me. I have often reflected upon the mo- 
tive which swayed me in that conversation, and I 
have always felt that I, being the man I was, yielded 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


287 


to exactly the same veneration for the admirable chief 
that had determined the silence of the insulted sol- 
dier. A general like him had the right to know every- 
thing that went on among his men. His army corps 
and himself were one. His soldiers were his family, 
they were himself j and I should have despised myself 
had I deceived him on an occasion so poignant. Ac- 
cordingly when, alone with me, he put me the question 
that I had dreaded all through that interminable day, 
I had not the strength to repeat my falsehood : — 

“ ‘What had happened when I came back to you this 
morning at eight? ’ he asked me. And as I remained 
silent: ‘Tell me,^he continued, ‘was it something which 
concerned P. ? Am I right? Yes? What had he 
done?’ And as if he had read my thoughts: ‘It is a 
part of the military duty not to tell a falsehood to the 
general. Do you not know this, Henri? ’ 

“ The use of my name, giving a note of tenderness to 
this imperative inquiry, decided me. I only begged the 
general to promise me he would not punish the offender. 

“‘If it is possible, I promise you,’ he said. And 
this promise being given, which took away from my 
act all evil aspect as that of an informer, I told him 
all. As I spoke, I saw his old lion’s face — if you 
have ever seen him you will remember it — grow dark 
until it became formidable. However, he let me go 
on without a word. Then, after a few minutes, which 
seemed interminable, while he paced the room: — 


288 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


dear Henri,’ he said, H thank you for having 
told me the truth. I thank you for the army and for 
myself.’ There was a remarkable solemnity in his 
tone as he said these words. ‘I thank you, also, for 
P. ;’ and he added: ‘Bring that man here whom he 
struck, and all the other soldiers who were there at 
the time. Find them for me immediately, and bring 
them here.’ 

“ Half an hour later I arrived, and with me the eight 
soldiers who were with us on the little hillock in the 
morning. When we had entered the general’s room, 
he asked me: — 

“‘Which is the man of whom you were speaking?’ 

“I pointed to the soldier. ‘My friend,’ the general 
said, ‘it is you, is it, who were struck by Commandant 
P.?’ 

“‘No, general,’ the man replied; ‘I was not struck by 
Commandant P.’ 

“‘You were struck by the commandant,’ said the 
general, with an authority that admitted of no reply. 
‘I know it, and I also know why you have made no 
complaint. You have done right in this, for if the 
commandant for a moment forgot himself, it is because 
he has never entirely recovered from 1870. He was a 
hero in that war, and for that cause you must forgive 
him. He has been a good soldier, as you are, as we 
all are here. But my service consists chiefly in being 
responsible for my officers and my men. When one 


THREE INCIDENTS OF WAR 


289 


of them does wrong, the fault is mine. he con- 

tinued, calling the man by name, ‘I apologize to you 
for the conduct of the commandant; and I desired your 
comrades to be present so that they might know that 
the general commanding the army corps apologized to 
you. Now give me your hand.’’^ 

‘‘And the Commandant P.?” one of us asked, as the 
narrator, as if choked with emotion, after so many 
years, at the memory of this scene, ceased speaking. 

“ The next day he sent in a request to exchange for 
Senegal,” was the reply. “We were making an expe- 
dition at the time into that country; and he was the 
admirable officer there that he had been all his life — 
except for a moment, one single moment. And he 
fully expiated that one moment, for he died in Sene- 
gal, of yellow fever, in the course of the campaign. 
Although his death was very sad, I never think of 
it without saying to myself, having seen the harm an 
unworthy passion had done him, that General M. was 
right, and that he did save him. Ah! there was a 
chief! and you know, in war as well as in politics, 
everything depends upon that.” 

Paris, October, 1901. 





1902 











